The soaring half domes of the Martyr Monument stand out against the drabness of eastern Baghdad, not far from where Saddam Hussein's feared eldest son was said to torture underperforming athletes.

Saddam built the split teardrop-shaped sculpture in the middle of a manmade lake in the early 1980s to commemorate Iraqis killed in the Iran-Iraq War. The names of hundreds of thousands of fallen Iraqi soldiers are inscribed in simple Arabic script around the base.

Photos and mementoes that were snatched up and blown hundreds of miles during tornados in the south of the United States two years ago are giving researchers new insight on how debris is carried by the storms and how it could threaten the public.

A new study has documented how one photo traveled nearly 220 miles (355 kilometers) over Alabama and Tennessee, said John Knox, an associate professor of geography at the University of Georgia who led the research. That is among the longest-documented trajectories of tornado debris.

Members of Syria's main opposition group were on Monday meeting in Turkey to form a rival government to President Bashar Assad's regime.

Twelve candidates are running for the job of an interim prime minister for areas the rebels control. The candidates are mostly exile-based technocrats, although two of the nominees live in the government-controlled areas.

The king of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan has one.

The first family of India's Hindi film industry, the Bachchans, own one.

China's new leaders turned Saturday to veteran technocrats with greater international experience to staff a Cabinet charged with overhauling a slowing economy and pursuing a higher global profile for the country without triggering opposition.

The ceremonial legislature approved nearly three dozen trusted politicians, experienced officials and career diplomats who make up the State Council. Their appointment largely completes a once-a-decade transfer of power to a new generation of communist leaders.

When three-time Olympian Chirine Njeim hits the slopes in the United States or Europe, somebody inevitably asks the questions.

You're from Lebanon? Where do you ski there, in the desert?

A small plane crashed into a parking lot near a South Florida airport Friday afternoon, killing all three people on board and burning about a dozen vehicles. No one on the ground was hurt.

Fire-Rescue Division Chief John San Angelo said the Piper Navajo, a twin-engine turboprop, began experiencing engine trouble shortly after taking off from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport at about 4:30 p.m.

Elton John has canceled a concert set for Friday night in the U.S.

The British singer was supposed to perform in Birmingham, Alabama. Ticketmaster announced the cancellation on its website.

"A little awkward" is how Selena Gomez describes her transition from Disney girl to Disney girl gone wild in the new R-rated independent film "Spring Breakers," in which she plays a bikini-clad and heavily armed college student bent on a good time with three friends and some drugs, sex and violence.

"I am getting a little bit older, so I wanted to push myself and kind of get into a little bit more of an indie world. And it was a really great experience for me. And at the same time it has been, of course, a little awkward, but great," the 20-year-old Gomez said Thursday at the film's Hollywood premiere.

A British auction house says it has unearthed the violin played by the bandmaster of the Titanic as the oceanliner sank.

Survivors of the Titanic have said they remember the band, led by Wallace Hartley, playing on deck even as passengers boarded lifeboats after the ship hit an iceberg.