Everton strengthened its attacking options by signing Samuel Eto'o on a two-year deal on Tuesday after the striker was released by Premier League rival Chelsea.

The 33-year-old Cameroon international, who scored 12 goals in 35 matches in his only season at Chelsea, is available to make his debut against the west London club on Saturday.

A vast U.S. archive of photographs of pre-Holocaust Eastern European Jewish life is being made available to the public and researchers.

The International Center of Photography in New York and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday announced the joint creation of a digital database to facilitate access to photographer Roman Vishniac's archive.

Venezuela's socialist government is sounding the alarm about growing waistlines in a country where record food shortages are making it harder to put healthy meals on the table, prompting many people to fill up on empty calories.

Authorities launched a public relations campaign Tuesday to halt a steady rise in obesity that threatens to lead to a costly, public health crisis if left unchecked.

The Islamic State militant group is holding hostage a young American woman who was doing humanitarian aid work in Syria, a family representative said. The 26-year-old woman is the third American known to have been kidnapped by the militant group.

The Islamic State group recently threatened to kill American hostages to avenge the crushing airstrikes in Iraq against militants advancing on Mount Sinjar and the Kurdish capital of Irbil.

Asian stock markets were mostly higher Wednesday after the latest record close for the Standard & Poor's 500, though gains were modest and Japan and Hong Kong lost ground after early advances.

KEEPING SCORE: Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.3 percent to 15,480.72 by early afternoon and Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost a smidgen to 25,067.18. South Korea's Kospi added 0.2 percent to 2,071.53 while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was steady at 5,638.10. Benchmarks in mainland China, India, Taiwan and Southeast Asia were higher.

Rows of dusty trucks and used cars sit unsold in Afghanistan's capital, where real estate agents bemoan a lack of sales and international businessmen no longer frequent top hotels. Even government employees nervously await each payday, worried the next might be delayed.

Afghanistan's economy, vastly supported by international military spending and aid since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to topple the Taliban, finds itself struggling on the precipice of what could be an uncertain future. NATO forces plan to pull out at the end of the year, insecurity is rising as international aid falls and a drawn-out election battle threatens to destabilize the country.

It has Al Pacino and zombie girlfriends, Owen Wilson and Lars von Trier.

The 71st Venice Film Festival opens this week, bringing 11 days of high art and Hollywood glamour to the canal-crossed Italian city.

Scientists are monitoring lava flowing from a Hawaii volcano eruption that could threaten homes.

The June 27 lava flow, named for the date it began erupting from a new vent, isn't an immediate threat to homes or structures downhill of the flow, but could become one in weeks or months if it continues to advance, the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said. The Kilauea volcano has been continuously erupting since 1983, but new vents — or points where lava reaches the surface — have opened up periodically.

Archaeologists excavating an ancient tomb under a massive burial mound in northern Greece have entered the underground structure, which appears to have been looted in antiquity.

The Culture Ministry said Monday that archaeologists have partially investigated the antechamber of the tomb at Amphipolis and uncovered a marble wall concealing one or more inner chambers. However, a hole in the decorated wall and signs of forced entry outside the huge barrel-vaulted structure indicate the tomb was plundered long ago. The excavation will continue for weeks.

The Tanzanian government's system of rounding up children with albinism in state-run education centers isn't adequately protecting them from widespread superstitious beliefs that human albino body parts will bring wealth and success or cure disease, the U.N. human rights office said Monday.

People with the genetic condition, characterized by a lack of pigment, are often referred to in Tanzania as ghosts, or zero zero, which in Swahili signifies someone who is less than human. Witch doctors often lead brutal attacks to use albino body parts in potions they claim bring riches.