After he fled from this tiny northern Iraqi hamlet four months ago, Hayder Khalef got panicked phone calls from his relatives who had remained behind. They were at that moment being led by Islamic State group gunmen toward a checkpoint on the edge of town.

"If you don't hear from us, you'll find our bodies near the checkpoint," Khalef said they told him in the calls.

On land deep in Hong Kong's lush green northern suburbs near the border with mainland China, farmer Koon-wing Chan is working to keep a legendary scent alive in the city known as the Fragrant Harbor.

Chan runs Hong Kong's last commercial plantation of agarwood trees, prized throughout the centuries for aromatic resin used to make incense, perfume and medicine.

In Egypt, where tattoos are widely considered taboo, organizers have held a convention to challenge stereotypes and show-off the ink designs as an art form.

Enthusiasts met over the weekend in the city's leafy upscale Zamalek neighborhood to check out the latest designs and watch the pros at work at the 2014 Cairo Tattoo Expo.

A Colorado company lost its latest fight against Disney over the rights to Marvel's iconic comic book characters Tuesday when a federal appeals court ruled it could not claim ownership to certain superheroes such as Spider-Man and Iron Man.

In its decision, a panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal judge's dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Stan Lee Media, which sought profits from the $5.5 billion the company says Disney made from movies and merchandise featuring Marvel's superheros.

Clint Eastwood and his wife of 18 years have finalized their divorce.

A Monterey County Superior Court judge finalized the Eastwoods' divorce Tuesday and approved a judgment that does not state how the pair will divide their assets.

A group led by Apple and Microsoft has sold about 4,000 technology patents to patent management company RPX Corp. for $900 million.

The deal announced Tuesday marks another shift in the ownership of a patent portfolio auctioned off in 2011 after telecommunications company Nortel Networks went bankrupt. Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Ericsson and Sony formed the Rockstar Consortium to buy the patents for $4.5 billion, outbidding Google Inc. for the rights to technology used in many mobile devices.

U.S. Federal officials have moved closer to overturning a decades-old ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, but activists say the proposed alternative would continue to stigmatize men who have sex with men.

The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it will recommend lifting the lifetime ban early next year, replacing it with a policy barring donations from men who have had sex with another man in the previous 12 months. The change would overturn a 31-year-old policy that many medical groups and gay activists say is no longer justified, given advances in HIV testing.

Severe weather slammed the southern U.S. two days before Christmas killing at least four people and knocking out power to thousands.

In Mississippi, Gov. Phil Bryant declared an emergency for two southeastern counties where officials said four people died in the storms and several more were injured. His office said thousands were without power Tuesday night around Columbia, which is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of Jackson.

Former President George H.W. Bush has been taken to a Houston hospital after experiencing a shortness of breath.

Spokesman Jim McGrath said in a statement that Bush was taken by ambulance to Houston Methodist Hospital on Tuesday evening as a precaution.

The former U.S. Navy Seal who claims to be the soldier who fired the shots that killed Osama Bin Laden is being investigated for possibly leaking classified information, the U.S. military confirmed on Tuesday.

U.S. Navy spokesman Ryan Perry said investigators were probing claims that Rob O'Neill had broken the law by disclosing details about the daring 2011 raid that ended a 10-year manhunt for Bin Laden.