Seize the day.

Only 52 weeks and a day are left before Dec. 21, 2012, when some believe the Maya predicted the end of the world.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has been a fervent photographer, snapping more than 10,000 pictures of the asteroid Vesta since it slipped into orbit around the giant space rock last summer.

The views were taken from a distance away — until now. On Wednesday, the space agency released new images of the hummocky surface as Dawn circled from an average altitude of 130 miles (209 kilometers) above the surface — the closest it'll get.

The journal Science is retracting a research paper suggesting that chronic fatigue syndrome may be caused by a particular virus.

The paper was published in 2009. The authors reported finding a virus called XMRV in blood cells from patients with the syndrome. But follow-up studies found no such connection.

Oil prices rose above $99 a barrel Thursday amid signs of growing U.S. crude demand and concerns about global supply.

Benchmark crude rose 93 cents to $99.60 per barrel in morning trading in New York. Brent crude rose 48 cents to $108.19 per barrel in London.

Microsoft Corp. is pulling out of the International Consumer Electronics Show, the largest trade show in the Americas. It's joining Apple in saying that it prefers to put on its own events when the time is right to show off its products.

Microsoft said the next show, to be held Jan. 9-12 in Las Vegas, will be the last show at which it has a booth or the CEO delivers the customary kick-off speech.

More than 2,000 members of Syria's security forces have been killed in nine months since anti-regime protests broke out, state news agency SANA said on Thursday.

"In response to a fallacious U.N. report on the situation in Syria, we have informed the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that the number of martyrs has surpassed 2,000 members of the security forces and the army," according to a letter SANA says was sent.

Technology stocks fell Wednesday, dragged down by a weak earnings report from the business software maker Oracle Corp.

Broad market indexes were flat. The Dow Jones industrial average eked out a gain of 4 points after having been down most of the day.

More Chinese cities are requiring users of Twitter-like microblog services to register with their real names, state media said Thursday, in a move likely to deter many online voices.

China has more than 485 million Internet users, the most of any country in the world. Sites that are deemed politically destabilizing or pornographic are routinely blocked, but microblogs have been widely used to share information not available in the state media.

Kid Rock is teaming up with a Detroit church to give away hundreds of gift baskets and retail gift certificates to needy families in the area where he got his start and still calls home.

The musician's nonprofit organization joined Hartford Memorial Baptist Church on Wednesday to distribute 100 gift certificates for Meijer retail and grocery stores, along with more than 300 gift baskets.

You'll find a drop-waist dress when you set off on your first shopping spree of the new year, and you probably already can find a flouncy ruffle attached to a chic, trim jacket or sheath in stores. But for all the talk about fast fashion, few looks move directly from the runway to the real world without some tweaks and adjustments.

Designers, manufacturers and retailers use the months between splashy previews and on-sale dates to harness big ideas and turn them into the garments they hope people will find appealing and flattering, and motivate them to buy.