A judge in New Jersey is about to find out if the state's highest court has a sense of humor.

The Supreme Court is expected on Thursday to release its decision on whether Vince A. Sicari can keep his job as a municipal judge while moonlighting as a stand-up comedian.

Police in the U.S. city of Milwaukee said a naked burglar tried to break into a veterinary clinic to steal drugs but got stuck in the air vents for almost 12 hours.

Police Lt. Mark Stanmeyer said employees of the Small Animal Hospital in Milwaukee came into work Monday morning and heard the muffled screams of someone calling for help. They discovered the 19-year-old stuck in a narrow shaft.

Child beauty pageants may soon be banned in France, after a surprise vote in the French Senate that rattled the pageant industry and raised questions about how the French relate to girls' sexuality.

Such contests, and the made-up, dolled-up beauty queens they produce, have the power to both fascinate and repulse, and have drawn criticism in several countries. France, with its controlling traditions, appears to be out front in pushing an outright ban.

Japan's trade deficit swelled to a larger-than-forecast 960.3 billion yen ($9.8 billion) in August, the 14th straight month of red ink, as imports outpaced growth in exports, customs data showed Thursday.

Boosted by higher fuel costs, imports rose 16 percent from a year earlier to 6.74 trillion yen ($68.7 billion) while exports climbed 14.7 percent to 5.78 trillion yen ($58.9 billion). The deficit was a quarter bigger than the 768.4 billion yen gap seen in August 2012.

The music and movie industries are sounding the alarm again on online piracy, saying illegal downloads are on the rise and search engines like Google aren't doing enough to stop them.

Entertainment executives say they have no intention of trying to revive failed U.S. legislation that would have imposed unprecedented regulations on Internet companies. That proposal last year prompted a fierce backlash from tech companies and activists who said it would damage the Internet as a free and open enterprise.

An ivory toothbrush thought to have belonged to Brazil's Emperor Pedro II and a minty toothpaste made by a European chemist for the Portuguese queen are among more than 200,000 pieces dating from the 17th through 19th centuries that archeologists have unearthed from a site in Rio de Janeiro being used for an extension the city's subway lines.

A team of more than two dozen archeologists, historians and others began excavating the plot in northern Rio last March. The plot, once the site of a slaughterhouse, is near the former imperial palace and thought to have once been used as a landfill by the imperial family and others, team members said Wednesday.

A Syrian official said a roadside bomb has targeted a bus in the country's central province, killing 19 people.

The official at the governor's office in Homs province says Thursday's explosion in the village of Jbourin also wounded four people on the bus. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Honda Motor Co. is recalling 318,000 Odyssey minivans in the U.S. and 63,400 Acura MDX sport-utility vehicles in several nations for an airbag defect.

The Japanese automaker says there have been no crashes related to the problem. Honda is also recalling 23,300 Odyssey minivans in Canada.

More than 15,000 residents have fled a volcano that rumbled to life less than a week ago in Indonesia and local airlines have been warned to avoid flying near the mountain as thick ash continues to spew from its crater, an official said Thursday.

The aviation warning was issued Wednesday for small planes serving short-haul flights in the region as small eruptions continue at Mount Sinabung, said Susanto, general manager for air navigation at Kuala Namu airport in North Sumatra's capital Medan. Like many Indonesians, he uses only one name.

Lawyers for concert promoter AEG Live LLC rested their defense Wednesday with testimony from a longtime friend and doctor of Michael Jackson in the negligence case filed by Jackson's mother over his death.

The trial is in its 21st week and jurors are expected to begin deliberations next week.