A big U.S. government study shows that in the past decade, the proportion of children who have high cholesterol has fallen.

The results are surprising, given that the childhood obesity rate didn't budge.

Some 2,400 people crossed into Turkey overnight to escape the escalating violence in Syria, Turkey’s government-run news agency reported on Wednesday.

The Anadolu Agency said that the crowd included 37 Syrian army officials two of whom were generals and two colonels.

With one gold down, the Russians are trying to discount all the talk about another sweep in synchronized swimming.

But it's not working. It's clear everyone else is playing for silver.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has given a replica of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar's sword to Venezuelan fencer Ruben Limardo for winning a gold medal at the London Olympics.

The 27-year-old fencer has received a hero's welcome in Venezuela since returning from winning the country's first gold medal in 44 years.

Bayern Munich says Germany striker Mario Gomez has undergone surgery on his left ankle and will be out of action for three weeks.

Bayern says the 27-year-old Gomez had the operation on Tuesday.

Arsenal made its third offseason player signing on Tuesday, with Spain attacking midfielder Santi Cazorla joining from Malaga on a long-term contract for an undisclosed fee.

Arsenal has already signed Olivier Giroud from Montpellier for a reported 13 million pounds (€20 million) and Lukas Podolski from FC Cologne for an undisclosed fee.

A Russian booster rocket on Tuesday failed to place two communications satellites into a designated orbit, officials said, marring the prestige of the nation's space program a day after NASA landed a robotic vehicle on Mars.

Russia's Roscosmos space agency said the Proton-M rocket was launched just before midnight Monday from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The booster's first stages worked fine, but the upper stage intended to give the final push to the satellites switched off earlier than expected, it said.

China is more than halfway toward a sweep of the diving gold medals at the London Olympics and suddenly looking vulnerable.

For the first time since diving began, the Chinese didn't lead a round. Ilya Zakharov of Russia topped the standings going into the men's 3-meter springboard semifinals on Tuesday.

The only drama in synchronized swimming is who's going to take the silver.

The Russian national anthem will surely be playing during the medal ceremony. Again.

Rescue workers searched Monday for more than 100 people trapped by a mudslide in southwestern China, while in another part of the country 400 workers were trapped by a flood in a railway tunnel.

The official Xinhua News Agency says the rain-triggered mudslide engulfed a village in Yunnan province on Monday morning, initially trapping at least 200 people. It also stated that firefighters rescued more than 80 people by noon.