Fragments of a failed Russian space probe are now expected to fall to Earth on Jan. 15, officials said Wednesday.

The unmanned Phobos-Ground probe was launched Nov. 9 on what was supposed to have been a 2 1/2-year mission to the Mars moon of Phobus to take soil samples and fly them back to Earth, but it became stuck in Earth's orbit and attempts to send commands that could propel it toward the Mars moon were unsuccessful.

A Canadian man who realized he forgot his passport as he approached the U.S. border found a new way to gain entry — his iPad.

Martin Reisch said Tuesday a slightly annoyed U.S. border officer let him cross into the United States from Quebec after he presented a scanned copy of his passport on his Apple iPad. Reisch was a half hour from the border when he decided to try to gain entry rather than turn back and make a two-hour trek back home to Montreal to fetch his passport.

Tens of thousands of dead herring have carpeted a stretch of coast in northern Norway — and then disappeared again.

The fish appeared on New Year's Eve, leading to speculation that predators might have driven a huge school ashore or the fish could have been washed onto the beach by a powerful storm that hit Norway on Christmas Day.

The director of a major Polish museum says it was a "witty artistic happening" when an art student secretly hung his own painting in the museum as part of a campaign to open up galleries to young artists.

Director of the National Museum in Wroclaw, Mariusz Hermansdorfer, said Wednesday he treated the campaign as a joke and has kept the painting on display — in the museum's cafe. It will be offered for sale at a charity auction.

Paris Saint-Germain President Nasser al-Khelaifi says David Beckham will not join the French club, despite weeks of speculation that the 36-year-old former England captain was coming to play.

Speaking in an interview with French radio station RMC, al-Khelaifi said: "David Beckham is in Los Angeles and he's going to stay there."

Pumping their fists and chanting, tens of thousands of North Koreans packed the snowy main square of the capital Tuesday to pledge their loyalty to new leader Kim Jong Un as the campaign to consolidate his power deepened.

State television also aired footage of Kim's recent visit to an elite tank unit with family and historical ties that showed him interacting with ease with soldiers and carrying out inspections much like his father and grandfather did before him. Soldiers cheered and chanted his name as Kim made an inaugural solo trip to provide "on-the-spot guidance" in the first official documentary of the new leader shown on North Korean TV.

Iran's currency, the rial, rebounded strongly on Tuesday, recovering completely from a dramatic 12-percent drop the day before, according to money changers and media.

The rial was trading at 15,900 to the U.S. dollar in the afternoon after it reached 17,000 against the greenback on Monday -- a record low for the Iranian currency.

Indonesians have found a new symbol for their growing frustration at uneven justice in this young, democratic nation: cheap, worn-out flip-flops.

They have been dropping them off at police stations throughout the country to express outrage over the arrest and trial of a 15-year-old boy for lifting an old pair of white sandals from outside a boarding house used by police in northern Indonesia.

The fight to fully legalize online gambling in the U.S. is now less about whether Americans will be able to play and more about who will bring the action to them — and when.

A recent U.S. Justice Department opinion opened the door for cash-strapped states and their lotteries to bring online gambling to their residents, as long as it does not involve sports betting.

Check-ups during pregnancy tend to focus around the waist. But there's growing debate about which mothers-to-be should have a gland in their neck tested, too.

Numerous studies since 1999 have found that an underactive thyroid can raise a woman's risk of miscarriage, premature birth, or a lower IQ for her baby — even if it's so mildly sluggish that she feels no symptoms.