Consella Lee

Two Los Angeles police officers accused of leaking a photo of pop star Rihanna's bruised face after a fight with her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown won't face charges, although they still may be fired, news reports said.

Three Chinese astronauts, including the first woman, returned to Earth after their manned spaceship successfully docked to another craft in orbit. The Shenzhou 9 space capsule safely parachute landed about 10 a.m. Beijing time Friday in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, following a 13-day mission that marked a major stride in China's ambitious space program.

The European Central Bank held its main interest rate at 1.0 percent on Thursday as stubborn inflation offset pressure to loosen borrowing costs further to support the weak eurozone economy.

Stocks edged higher on Friday, again driven by strong corporate earnings that partially offset a weaker-than-expected reading on economic growth, extending three days of gains.

Senior Facebook executives met Monday with analysts and bankers, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't attend. The company's chief financial officer told attendees that Zuckerberg prefers to focus on developing Facebook's social-networking service.

Bodies in Homs were discovered hours after Kofi Annan, special envoy to Syria and former U.N. secretary general, left the country Sunday without a deal to end the bloody year-old conflict.

Gold is down more than 6 percent since late February, having dropped sharply from the year's highs after U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke held off signaling a further round of U.S. monetary easing in a key speech.

The U.S. and Israeli leaders will try to sort out their differences over what Washington fears could be an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites. With the U.S. presidential election just eight months away, Obama's Republican foes have been quick to paint him as tough on Israel and soft on Iran.

The storms raised fears that 2012 will be another bad year for tornadoes after 550 people died in the United States from them last year, the deadliest year in nearly a century, according to the Weather Service.

Shadid, 43, was on a reporting assignment in eastern Syria when he died, according to an obituary posted on the Times web site. It said Shadid was carried across the border into Turkey by Times photographer Tyler Hicks.

Syrian President Bashar Assad ordered a referendum for later this month on a new constitution that would allow political parties other than his ruling Baath Party as part of promised reforms, The Associated Press said.

The Fed revised December's industrial output to show a solid 1.0 percent increase instead of the previously reported 0.4 percent gain, pointing to underlying strength in the economy. Economists polled by Reuters had expected industrial production to increase 0.7 percent last month .

The moves puts the focus on Mark Fields, 50, who runs Ford's operations in North and South America, and Joe Hinrichs, 45, who runs the automaker's operations in Asia, as the leading internal candidates to succeed Mulally.

The announcement caps more than a year of chaotic negotiations among state and federal officials, and the banks, who have been accused of using robosigners and unlawful documentation to deal with a flood of foreclosures.

The trial, which is likely to shine a searching light on the adequacy of the bank's management and risk controls, could land Adoboli with a maximum 10-year jail sentence if convicted of the two counts of fraud and two of false accounting.

Obama was set to announce the request, which could open the door to further consolidation in Washington, in a late morning address at the White House.

Securities regulators sued former top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Friday, saying they misled investors over exposure to risky mortgages.

The president of the European Commission appealed to EU leaders on Thursday to set aside their differences and unite to rescue the euro from a sovereign debt crisis that is menacing the world economy.

A suicide attack killed dozens of Shi'ite Muslims at a crowded Kabul shrine on Tuesday, and four others died in a smaller blast in a key northern city, in the worst sectarian violence Afghanistan has seen since the fall of the Taliban.

Wireless service provider Verizon Wireless will not include Google Inc's payments app Google Wallet on its latest smartphone Galaxy Nexus this month, The Wall Street Journal said.

The Federal Reserve must take immediate action to inject new life into a moribund U.S. recovery or risk letting the nation settle into a permanently lower growth path, a top Fed official said on Monday.

Coca-Cola Co. defended on Friday the safety of its yogurt drinks sold in northern China, denying there was any link to the death of a child or the illness of three other people who had consumed the drinks, but said it removed the product from shelves in a precautionary move.

British judges ruled on Monday that Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing Web site Wikileaks, could take his year-long fight against extradition to Sweden to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.

Prime Minister Mario Monti, boosted by positive market reaction, takes a 30 billion euro austerity package to Italy's parliament on Monday to help stem a debt crisis threatening to overwhelm the Eurozone.

British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened on Friday to obstruct a Franco-German drive for swift change to the European Union's treaty intended to help save the euro.

Thomson Reuters Corp Chief Executive Tom Glocer is stepping down at the end of the year following a slump in the share price in recent months. He will be replaced by Chief Operating Officer James Smith, a veteran Thomson executive who has run the company's most successful operations.

The euro rose for a fifth straight session against the dollar on Friday, bolstered by speculation that the European Central Bank may lend to weak euro zone countries through the International Monetary Fund.

Initial results of Egypt's first free election in six decades will emerge on Thursday, with Islamist parties expecting to command a majority in parliament, hard on the heels of victories by their counterparts in Tunisia and Morocco.

Pakistan, enraged by a NATO cross-border attack that killed 24 soldiers, could end support for the U.S.-led war on militancy if its sovereignty is violated again, the foreign minister said, warning enough is enough.