France is the home of the baguette, that savory, crisp staple of a fabled gastronomy. But just try getting a fresh one in the evening, or on a holiday, or even in August, when many of the country's 33,000 bakeries are closed.

Jean-Louis Hecht thinks he has the answer.

Within sight of the Golden Gate Bridge lies another landmark cherished by a small but fervent group of travelers: a life-sized replica of Yoda, George Lucas' master of the Force.

Since the statue of the Jedi sage went up amid the Presidio's landscaped lawns in 2005, Star Wars fans have made a pilgrimage to take pictures with their beloved character and take in Lucasfilm Ltd.'s sleek headquarters.

Less than a year before London hosts the 2012 Games, scenes of rioting and looting a few miles (kilometers) from the main Olympic site have raised concerns about security and policing for the event.

Images of buildings and vehicles in flames broadcast around the world are also poor publicity for the capital as it prepares to stage the games for a third time.

Scientists who hunt for "intelligence genes" used to think there were fewer than half a dozen of them.

In recent years, they determined there may be at least 1,000 — each with just a tiny effect on the differences in people's IQ. A study released Tuesday found new evidence that many genes play a role in intelligence, but scientists still couldn't pinpoint the specific genes involved.

Hackers are out to stymie your smartphone.

Last week, security researchers uncovered yet another strain of malicious software aimed at smartphones that run Google's popular Android operating system. The application not only logs details about incoming and outgoing phone calls, it also records those calls.

Taiwan's main opposition party said Tuesday its headquarters has been the target of a sustained hacking attack from China and one instance of hacking from the government in Taipei.

Deputy Director Alex Huang of the Democratic Progressive Party's Policy Research Committee linked the computer attacks to Taiwan's quadrennial presidential and legislative elections, scheduled for January.

Asian stocks markets are stabilizing after a day of dramatic plunges Tuesday as futures point to a measure of calm returning to Wall Street following the Dow's sixth worst decline in the last 112 years.

To be sure, investors remained on edge amid fears of a possible global recession. But by midafternoon, major Asian indexes had pulled back from a dizzying tailspin earlier in the day.

A senior government minister in Australia has announced that her lesbian partner is pregnant.

Finance Minister Penny Wong said in a statement Tuesday that her partner, Sophie Allouache, had conceived through in-vitro fertilization and is expecting her first child in December.

Turkey's foreign minister has left for Damascus to press the Syrian leadership into ending the violent crackdown of the five-month old uprising.

Ahmet Davutoglu's visit on Tuesday comes days after Turkey said its patience with its neighbor was running out. Envoys from India, Brazil and South Africa are also slated to arrive in Damascus on Tuesday to appeal for an end to the violence.

Hind Rostom, a legendary actress from the golden era of Egyptian cinema, has died in Cairo. She was 82.

Egypt's MENA state news agency said Rostom died Monday of a heart attack at a Cairo hospital shortly after being admitted with chest pains.