A new study looking at 11,000 years of climate temperatures shows the world in the middle of a dramatic U-turn, lurching from near-record cooling to a heat spike.

Research released Thursday in the journal Science uses fossils of tiny marine organisms to reconstruct global temperatures back to the end of the last ice age. It shows how the globe for several thousands of years was cooling until an unprecedented reversal in the 20th century.

On a dusty field in Israel's southern desert, the military is gearing up for the next battle against a familiar foe: Hizbullah fighters in Lebanon.

As the Syrian civil war intensifies, military planners are growing increasingly jittery that the fighting could spill over into Israel, potentially dragging the party that is allied with President Bashar Assad into the fray. After battling Hizbullah to a stalemate in 2006, the Israeli military says it has learned key lessons and is prepared to inflict heavy damage on the group if fighting begins again.

Leonardo DiCaprio says filming violent scenes like in "Django Unchained" doesn't deter him from wanting his movies to be great art.

The bloody revenge film about slavery before the U.S. Civil War has fueled some of the debate about whether Hollywood shows too much on-screen violence. DiCaprio portrays a ruthless plantation owner encountered by a freed slave and bounty hunter (Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz).

In Poland, speaking out in parliament is a privilege mostly reserved for lawmakers, but the opposition has skirted that regulation with the help of a hand-held tablet computer.

Nationalist opposition party leader and lawmaker Jaroslaw Kaczynski has introduced a non-confidence motion against the Cabinet of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and a vote is expected Friday.

Justin Bieber is recovering after fainting backstage at a concert in London.

A spokeswoman for Bieber said late Thursday that the 19-year-old pop star was given oxygen and took a 20-minute reprieve after fainting backstage at London's O2 Arena.

Police in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo are baffled by a macabre puzzle: someone has been leaving gift-wrapped human skulls around town.

Investigator Paul Henry Bozon Verduraz described the case to the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper in a story published Thursday.

The trial of a Hizbullah member accused of preparing attacks on Israelis in Cyprus has concluded with final summations submitted to the court in writing.

The court then asked defense and prosecution lawyers to clarify specific parts of their summations, which weren't read out or made public Thursday. The court said it will render its verdict on March 21.

The impish boy who showed off his dance moves alongside PSY in "Gangnam Style" is hoping to go viral, too.

The 7-year-old nicknamed "Little PSY" is releasing an electro pop song next week through iTunes. The boy whose real name is Hwang Min-woo says he wants to gain global fame like his "big brother," PSY.

France's finance minister says Europe must focus more on promoting growth and less on tightening budgets to revive the bloc's sluggish economy and avoid a deepening social crisis.

Pierre Moscovici warned Thursday in Brussels that continuing on a strict austerity course would only "nourish a social crisis that leads to populism."

LeBron James scored 26 points, including a go-ahead layup with 3.2 seconds left, as the Miami Heat scrambled late to beat the Orlando Magic 97-96 on Wednesday and extend their club-record winning streak to 16 games.

Dwyane Wade scored 24 points and Chris Bosh added 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Heat, who conceded a 20-point, second-half lead and then rallied from a five-point deficit in the final minutes.