The head of the U.N. AIDS agency told a Vatican conference on AIDS Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI's comments about the use of condoms in preventing HIV transmission had opened new prospects for dialogue with the U.N.

Dr. Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS, said it will help strengthen the fight for greater access to treatment for those afflicted. Sidibe said Benedict's views were important, even if differences remain between the U.N. and Catholic Church.

Internet phone service Skype says a small percentage of its 170 million users have been unable to sign in to its service, a problem that it expects to fix with a software update.

Skype said on its website the trouble stemmed from corrupted data affecting computers using Windows, Linux or Macintosh operating systems.

A Canadian couple says it's none of the world's business to know their baby's gender despite a firestorm of criticism over their controversial decision to keep the infant's sex a secret.

Kathy Witterick said her 4-month-old baby Storm should be able to develop its own sexual identity without having to conform to social stereotypes or bow to predetermined expectations associated with gender.

British-born painter, writer and sculptor Leonora Carrington, considered one of the last of the original surrealists, has died, Mexico's National Arts Council confirmed Thursday. She was 94.

Carrington was known for her haunting, dreamlike works that often focused on strange ritual-like scenes with birds, cats, unicorn-like creatures and other animals as onlookers or seeming participants.

The knowledge that I'd be cut off from Internet and cellphone service in just a few hours started to relax me long before I reached the secluded, serene site of a two-day yoga retreat in upstate New York.

For 43 magical hours, chirping birds replaced car horns and sirens. Two-hour yoga classes, hammock-lounging and hot-tubbing replaced sitting at my desk in Manhattan.

Are these planets without orbits? Astronomers have found 10 potential planets as massive as Jupiter wandering through a slice of the Milky Way galaxy, following either very wide orbits or no orbit at all. And scientists think they are more common than the stars.

These mysterious bodies, apparently gaseous balls like the largest planets in our solar system, may help scientists understand how planets form.

The uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad is eviscerating the country's economy, threatening to hit hard at the business community and prosperous merchant classes, which the embattled regime relies on to help retain its grip on power.

About two months of violent protests around the country have shuttered businesses, driven away tourists and thrust Assad's regime into an unprecedented political quagmire that found its roots in the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Economic growth rates that had hit around 3.5 percent in fiscal 2010, are seen, according to some estimates, contracting by 3 percent in fiscal 2011.

As crestfallen followers of a California preacher who foresaw the world's end strained to find meaning in their lives, Harold Camping revised his apocalyptic prophecy, saying he was off by five months and the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21.

Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before global cataclysm struck the planet, said Monday that he felt so terrible when his doomsday message did not come true that he left home and took refuge in a motel with his wife. His independent ministry, Family Radio International, spent millions — some of it from donations made by followers — on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 recreational vehicles plastered with the Judgment Day message.

Yahoo Inc. is giving its popular email service a long-promised facelift in an attempt to make it more appealing to people who are increasingly using Facebook, Twitter, Google and other online alternatives to communicate.

The changes announced Tuesday build upon a redesigned email format that Yahoo began testing seven months ago. The estimated 277 million users of Yahoo's free email service will be switched to the new version during the next few weeks.

A married couple pleaded guilty Monday to charges that they planned to ship money to Hizbullah, which the United States lists as a terrorist organization.

The plea deal will spare Hor and Amera Akl from potential life sentences.