Rapper Snoop Dogg is facing a minor drug charge in Texas after border agents say they found several joints on his tour bus.

Hudspeth County sheriff's office said in a statement that Snoop Dogg, whose name is Calvin Broadus, was arrested Saturday at the Sierra Blanca highway checkpoint and cited for possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor typical in cases involving small amounts of marijuana.

San Francisco is launching the 75th anniversary celebration of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge with a string of parties, guided tours and festivals to be held along the waterfront.

Authorities, however, won't be throwing open the orange span for a mass public walk.

Authorities in southern Wisconsin are facing a tongue twister thanks to the arrest of Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop.

The unusually named 30-year-old man was in jail Sunday in Madison. Police say he violated his bail conditions from a previous run-in with the law.

Venus Williams withdrew from the Australian Open on Monday, prolonging her absence from the tennis tour because of an autoimmune disease that can cause fatigue and joint pain.

The seven-time Grand Slam title winner announced on Twitter and her website that she wouldn't play in the year's first major tournament, which starts next week. She added, though, that she plans to be back in action next month.

Syrian President Bashar Assad on Tuesday accused foreign parties of seeking to destabilize Syria but stressed that he would not step down over increased demonstrations against him.

"We will declare victory soon," he said in a speech at Damascus University broadcast live on state television.

A bomb targeting a militia opposed to the Pakistani Taliban exploded in a market close to the Afghan border on Tuesday, killing 35 people in the deadliest blast in the country in several months, officials said.

The explosion hit vehicles being used by the militia in the Khyber region, said local security officer Khan Dad Khan.

Syrian security forces on Monday killed 21 people across the country, 13 of them in the flashpoint central province of Homs, activists said.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said regime troops killed eighteen civilians and three army defectors, “nine of them under torture.”

Both Ryan Seacrest and Fox executives say they want Seacrest to remain as host of "American Idol" beyond this season. But Fox entertainment chief Kevin Reilly says it's been a "tough negotiation" to make that happen.

Both sides were tight-lipped about the state of those talks at news conferences on Sunday, a few weeks before the nation's most popular television show begins its 11th season.

Greek police say thieves have broken into the country's biggest art museum in Athens and stolen two paintings.

A police spokeswoman says the theft at the state National Art Gallery took place before dawn Monday. The missing works were not identified, and there was no information on their value.

A rare duck normally only seen in Asia has somehow turned up in California, drawing excited bird watchers from all over the U.S. and Canada to a wildlife refuge in the state's Central Valley.

Wildlife officials say a male falcated duck, a bird common in China, was first spotted at the refuge on Dec. 8.