Middle East Mess: Saudi Arabia abruptly severed diplomatic ties with Iran yesterday after Iranian protesters attacked the Saudi embassy over the execution of an outspoken Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia. Iran’s diplomatic staff was given 48 hours to get out of town.

Bahrain followed and cut ties with Iran today.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Saturday that Saudi Arabia would face divine vengeance for the execution. The Saudi foreign minister said he will not allow Iran to undermine the kingdom’s security.

It’s a new low in Saudi/Iranian relations. The two countries have been fighting a proxy war in Yemen with Saudi Arabia bombing rebels supported by Iran

China Syndrome: Trading on the Chinese stock market was halted today after shares dropped 7 percent, triggering the market’s circuit breaker. China’s market dropped dramatically last summer, but recent reports show that manufacturing is continuing to decline. Markets also fell around the rest of Asia.

GunBeat: As part of a renewed initiative on gun violence, President Obama has scheduled a town hall style meeting to discuss the issue Thursday night at George Mason University outside Washington. After the San Bernardino massacre carried out by resident terrorists, Obama’s administration is now linking America’s liberal gun laws to terrorism. National Security Advisor Benjamin Rhodes told reporters in Hawaii Saturday that, “It would be better for our security if it was harder for terrorists to purchase very powerful weapons.”

The Obit Page: Howard Davis, Jr., the lightweight boxer from Glen Cove, LI who won an Olympic Gold Medal in the 1976 games just three days after his mother died, has died of lung cancer at home in Florida at age 59. Davis told the NY Post last summer, “It was devastating, but I remembered her pointing her finger in my face and telling me, ‘You’d better win the gold medal.’ I wasn’t going to be denied. There was no way I was going to lose.”

Davis was voted the outstanding boxer of the Montreal games over the ultimately more famous Sugar Ray Leonard and Leon Spinks. Despite his being a devastating puncher, a high school friend described Davis on Facebook as “sweet, hysterical, witty.”

The journey of his medal is an equally fascinating story. It was stolen in a 1981 burglary on Long Island, but the thief evidently tossed it out of his car, where it stayed by the roadside for 10 years. A highway landscaper picked it up and used it as a paperweight for another four years. Only after a visitor recognized the medal was it returned to Davis.

>Hungarian Vilmos Zsigmond, who won an Oscar for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and was ranked as one of the most influential cinematographers of all time, has died at 85. He was also nominated for “The Deer Hunter,” and “The River” (1984) and “The Black Dahlia” (2006).

Patriot Games: Despite a potentially serious confrontation between armed “patriots” and the federal government, Internet wags are making merciless fun of the men who have taken over buildings at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon. They’ve been nicknamed “Y’all Qaeda” and their cause has been dubbed “YeeHawd.” One twitter user said, “Every successful revolution starts with takeover of closed visitor center with gift shop.”

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