CAIRO ­­— An explosion hit the Egyptian pipeline carrying gas to Israel and Jordan on Monday for 14th time since the uprising against President Hosni Mubarak began last year, security sources said. The blast took place in North Sinai at the entrance of the Mediterranean coastal town Arish. Residents in the city told Reuters they had heard the sound of the explosion.

Presidential hopeful Bothaina Kamel said she does not regret failing to collect the necessary signatures for her presidential candidacy, thereby dropping out of the race. "They were the best months of my life,” she said on her Facebook page, pointing to the period from her candidacy announcement until she pulled out.

The American University in Cairo strongly rejects claims by the head of the National Security Agency that the school practices “suspicious” activities and incited the violence on Mohamed Mahmoud Street and at the cabinet sit-in at the end of last year, the university said in a Sunday statement.

Saturday's court ruling disqualifying Ayman Nour’s presidential bid is invalid and contains unprecedented legal errors, Nour said Sunday. He vowed to appeal the ruling and continue his run for president.

The People's Assembly’s Proposals and Complaints Committee has rejected a draft law proposing the cancellation of khula divorces, state-run news agency MENA said Sunday. The bill, which had been proposed by independent MP Mohamed al-Omda, the deputy head of the committee, would outlaw the Islamic practice of khula, which grants a woman the right to get a divorce in court if she pays her husband back their marriage settlement.

The only way to resolve the crisis of Islamist domination of the Constituent Assembly is to dissolve the body, said the Wasat Party president in a speech Sunday. Abul Ela Mady said the new constitution must be acceptable to all segments of society, and must regard Egypt’s national interest above all else.

Parliament's budget and planning committee, headed up by Freedom and Justice Party MP Saad El-Husseini, has approved a draft law setting Egypt's national maximum monthly wage at LE50,000, some 35 times the official minimum wage, state news agency MENA reported on Sunday.

The Ultras Ahlawy sit-in’s ban on women at its protest site after 10 pm is a violation of citizens’ right to protest, according to a member of the Egyptian Feminist Union. “We cannot criticize Islamists for banning women from participating in protests when revolutionary forces do the same,” union member Omar Ahmed said on Sunday. “They even forbade them from smoking.”

Egypt's administrative court has thrown out a lawsuit protesting the split of Orascom Telecom into two separate companies. The Egyptian telecommunications giant was split earlier in 2012 following its partial sale to Russia's Vimpelcom the previous year. The spun-off assets now form Orascom Telecom Holding (OTH), mainly comprised of overseas interests and owned by Vimpelcom, and Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT).

The Tanta Criminal Court on Sunday adjourned the trial of Gharbiya’s former security director and a number of other security officials and officers, all accused of killing protesters during the 25 January uprising last year, to 9 June to allow the court to hear defense witness testimony and examine material evidence.

Despite the statement Omar Suleiman issued to the media last Wednesday announcing that he will not run for president, his supporters have said that they still endorse the former vice president and will even try to convince him to change his mind and run in the presidential race.

The Journalists Syndicate announced on Thursday that it has formally withdrawn its representative from the Constituent Assembly, Mamdouh al-Waly, on the grounds that the assembly is not “balanced.”

Major-General Mahmoud El-Hefnawy, police chief for South Sinai, denied reports in the Israeli media that rockets which struck the southern Israeli resort of Eilat were fired from the Sinai peninsula.

Head of the General Education Sector at the Education Ministry Reda Mossad told Al-Masry Al-Youm Thursday that the secondary school draft law is almost complete and will be submitted to the cabinet for discussion.

Egypt's opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei has waded into the debate on the role of the military with a Twitter comment that "the armed forces are a part of the executive authority" and therefore its budget and business interests should be not be separate from the rest of the national budget.

Former Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass on Tuesday asked the Public Funds Prosecution to adjourn investigating him on charges of smuggling Egyptian antiquities to the United States and Australia and squandering public funds until he submits documents proving his innocence.

French police swooped in on suspected radical Islamists in pre-dawn raids in several cities on Wednesday, arresting at least 10 people, a source close to the investigation said. The raids were notably carried out in the southern port city of Marseille as well as Roubaix near the Belgian border and in several other locations in the country's south and southwest, the source said.

Shortages of gasoline and diesel fuel have diminished on Tuesday in most areas, with the Petroleum Ministry pumping extra fuel to meet market needs, according to officials at the Ministry of Social Solidarity and Domestic Trade.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, on Tuesday met with Congressman David Dreier of the US House of Representatives and his accompanying delegation. The meeting discussed views on developments and rapid changes in the regional and international arenas, as well as the political transition toward democracy in Egypt, in light of the strategic relations between the two countries.

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has seized two painted sarcophagi covers from a shop in the Old City of Jerusalem. According to a statement send out by the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities, the two covers were stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country after being modified to look like replicas.

In a further blow to the legitimacy of the constituent assembly, the head of a leading advisory body to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has called for the assembly to disband, following his own resignation from the body and those of many of its other members. Sameh Ashour, the head of the Advisory Council created by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in November 2011, has called for the SCAF to draft a new constitutional declaration.