A plan by California and Canadian universities to build the world’s largest telescope at the summit of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano received approval from the state.

An international rights group says the Syrian regime has been carrying out indiscriminate and sometimes deliberate airstrikes against civilians that have killed at least 4,300 people since last summer.

A Syrian government official says a car bombing in central Damascus has killed at least 10 people.

Roger Ebert, the most famous and popular film reviewer of his time who became the first journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize for movie criticism and, on his long-running TV program, wielded America's most influential thumb, died Thursday. He was 70.

She was a Polish farmer’s daughter who emigrated to the United States, a maid who worked for a wealthy American heir, a third wife who inherited much of the Johnson & Johnson fortune after a sensation

Two men charged with assaulting New Zealand cricketer Jesse Ryder were remanded on bail when they appeared in court today.

The power of ideas nourished Nelson Mandela during his confinement on Robben Island, but even this visionary might not have imagined the surreal scene planned for this month at the outpost where he spent 18 of 27 years as a prisoner of apartheid.

A Saudi newspaper says the kingdom’s religious police are now allowing women to ride motorbikes and bicycles but only in restricted, recreational areas.
The Al-Yawm daily on Monday cited an unnamed official from the powerful religious police as saying women can ride bikes in parks and recreational areas but they have to be accompanied by a male relative and dressed in the full Islamic head-to-toe abaya.
Saudi Arabia follows an ultraconservative interpretation of Islam and bans women from driving.
Women are also banned from riding motorcycles or bicycles in public places.
The newspaper didn’t say what triggered the lifting of the ban.
The official says women may not use the bikes for transportation but “only for entertainment” and that “to avoid harassment” they should shun places where young men gather.

The US Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a first-of-its-kind diabetes drug from Johnson & Johnson that uses a new method to lower blood sugar — flushing it out in patients’ urine.

Marilyn Monroe’s letter of despair to mentor Lee Strasberg, and Dwight D. Eisenhower’s heartfelt missives to his wife during World War II are among hundreds of historical documents being offered in an online auction. Also included is a draft letter from John Lennon to Linda and Paul McCartney around the time of the breakup of the Beatles.