US Presses China to Release Nobel Winner's Wife

China should allow the wife of jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiabo to "move freely and without harassment," American diplomatic officials in Beijing say. Liu Xia has been under house arrest since meeting with her husband Sunday. Chinese authorities, infuriated by the award, have cut off her telephone and Internet communications and blocked a visit from a delegation of European diplomats, the AP reports.

Before her communications were cut off, Liu told Reuters that her husband, serving an 11-year sentence for subversion, had asked her to travel to Norway to collect the prize on his behalf. "I think it will be very difficult," she said when asked if she thought Beijing would allow her to travel. Chinese authorities, which have painted the award as an attack on China from the "prejudiced" West, have stepped up harassment of other dissidents over the last few days. (More Liu Xiaobo stories.)