An underwear bandit is actively stealing women's undergarments in Kodiak, Alaska.

Alaska State Troopers say there's been a rash of burglaries reported lately. People have returned to their homes to find items — mostly women's underwear — missing.

A new report says the plight of people fleeing Syria's civil war has reached "a new level of hopelessness" as overstretched neighbors make it more difficult to escape and developed countries like the United States resettle a tiny number of refugees. Less than 2 percent have been given a new home.

The report released Wednesday by the International Rescue Committee and the Norwegian Refugee Council says the number of refugees from Syria has dropped sharply, with 18,483 registered in October, while an average of 150,000 were registered each month in 2013 with the United Nations refugee committee.

Egypt has withdrawn its team from the world short-course swimming championships being held in Qatar.

Swimming's governing body, FINA, says it "regrets the Egyptian Swimming Federation decision to not take part" in the December 3-7 event.

At the beginning of "Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare," the recently released installment in Activision's blockbuster military shooter franchise, the player is dumped from the sky in a drop pod onto an urban battlefield, smashing into skyscrapers and landing in a futuristic, war-torn rendition of a city that's rarely depicted in video games: Seoul, South Korea.

It's a "Wizard of Oz" moment for the "Call of Duty" series.

Attempt at your own risk: For an entire week, I left all my cash and credit cards at home to see how well wallet-free mobile services work in the real world.

Apple Pay has gotten a lot of attention in recent weeks, but there are lots of other mobile-payment systems. Google Wallet uses a similar wireless technology called NFC, or near-field communication. Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts have apps that generate bar codes for their stores. A phone case called LoopPay mimics the signals produced by card swipes so you can pay with your phone just about anywhere credit cards are accepted — at least in theory.

The European Space Agency's unmanned Rosetta probe successfully released a lander toward the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Wednesday, putting it on its final seven-hour journey to a historic rendezvous with the fast-moving lump of dust and ice.

The audacious landing attempt is the climax of a decade-long mission to study the 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) wide comet. It is also the end of a 6.4 billion-kilometer (4 billion-mile) journey on which Rosetta carried its sidekick lander Philae piggyback.

Gym classes that promise a plump posterior are in high demand. A surgery that pumps fat into the buttocks is gaining popularity. And padded panties that give the appearance of a rounder rump are selling out.

The U.S. booty business is getting a big bump. Companies are cashing in on growing demand from women seeking the more curvaceous figures of their favorite stars, who flaunt their fuller rear ends.

Nicki Minaj is apologizing for a video that some feel uses Nazi imagery.

The rapper posted on Twitter on Tuesday that she didn't create the concept for the lyric video for her song "Only." She wrote: "(I) take full responsibility if it has offended anyone. I'd never condone Nazism in my art."

Grammy-winning salsa singer Marc Anthony has married his Venezuelan model girlfriend at a seaside resort in the Dominican Republic.

The 46-year-old New York-born singer of Puerto Rican roots tied the knot with 26-year-old Shannon de Lima at a Tuesday ceremony at his residence in the exclusive Dominican resort of Casa de Campo.

It's no secret baseball legend Joe DiMaggio loved Marilyn Monroe. The famed New York Yankee cried at her funeral and for 20 years had flowers placed at her crypt several times a week.

The public displays were unusual for the famously stoic and private DiMaggio. Now, his heartbreak over the breakup of one of the most sensational marriages in American history will get a rare public airing when "Marilyn Monroe's Lost Archives" goes up for bid at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills next month.