Hello Kitty cuteness is taking over Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles as the city hosts the first Hello Kitty fan convention.

Hello Kitty Con is expected to draw some 25,000 fans over four days.

Suge Knight and comedian Katt Williams were arrested and charged with robbery Wednesday after a celebrity photographer reported the men stole her camera last month.

Prosecutors say Williams and Knight, who founded Death Row Records, were arrested Wednesday. Knight has a prior conviction for assault with a deadly weapon and could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

Who says kids don't read? Not Taylor Swift.

The superstar made a stop Tuesday night on her busy tour promoting her new album to share her passion for reading and writing with a gaggle of New York City public school kids — and 100 more giggling on computer screens via Skype from classrooms in Michigan and California.

British pop star Phil Collins on Tuesday handed over his vast collection of artifacts related to the Battle of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution to the state of Texas.

Collins was in San Antonio to donate what's considered the world's largest private collection of Alamo artifacts. It includes a fringed leather pouch and a gun used by Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie's legendary knife and letters from garrison commander William B. Travis.

A judge has finalized Jane Lynch's divorce from her wife more than four years after the couple were married.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ralph C. Hofer approved the pair's divorce judgment on Monday. The agreement calls for Dr. Lara Embry, a clinical psychologist, to receive half of Lynch's royalties from several entertainment projects, including several seasons of the TV series "Glee."

Elton John called Pope Francis "my hero" for his compassion and push to accept gays by the Roman Catholic Church, at his annual AIDS benefit.

John hosted the event, "An Enduring Vision: A Benefit for the Elton John AIDS Foundation," Tuesday night in New York City. He said Francis is pushing boundaries in the church and told the crowd: "Make this man a saint now, OK?"

As a Japanese schoolgirl in the 1970s, Kazumi Kaminaga had never seen something as cute as Hello Kitty when she first laid eyes on the moon-faced, mouthless character in a shop.

"There were hardly any 'kawaii' products when I was in elementary school," said the now 51-year-old mother, using the Japanese word for cute.

It's long been said that pop stars live fast and die young, but a new Australian study has added scholarly credibility to the adage, finding that U.S. musicians die up to 25 years earlier than the general population.

"This is clear evidence that all is not well in pop music land," said the University of Sydney's Dianna Kenny, who analysed the deaths of 12,665 predominantly male American musicians between 1950 and June this year.

The winner of the Funniest Person in the World competition is a brown-haired, slightly rotund stand-up comic from Finland who boasts he has hit on the perfect solution to the planet's international monetary woes.

"Countries don't owe money to each other, countries owe money to banks," says Ismo Leikola. "If the countries owe money to banks how stupid are the countries to pay. Like the country has an army. The bank has four cashiers and a cleaning lady."

Moving more decisively away from her country roots, Taylor Swift on Monday released a danceable pop album that the beleaguered record industry hopes will be the year's top-seller.

Called "1989," the year the soon-to-be 25-year-old US music phenomenon was born, Swift's fifth album is accompanied by a methodical marketing campaign that ranges from product tie-ins to meetings with lucky fans.