Facebook's recent effort to force people to adopt its standalone mobile messaging app has privacy-concerned users up in arms. Many of them believe the app is especially invasive.

One blog from the Huffington Post published in December has gone viral, making the rounds on the social network recently because it claims the app gives Facebook "direct control over your mobile device" and allows Facebook to call phone numbers without a users' intervention and send text messages without confirmation, but none of that is accurate.

When birds and planes collide, the results can be deadly. That's why airports around the world work hard to keep birds away, even resorting to shooting or poisoning large flocks.

One Ohio airport is now experimenting with a new, gentler way to avoid bird strikes: planting tall prairie grass.

Jeff Goldblum is coming back to New York but not to act — he'll be singing.

The Cafe Carlyle said the "Jurassic Park" and "The Fly" star will perform Sept. 16-20 with his jazz band, The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra.

Legia Warsaw has appealed to UEFA against losing a place in the Champions League qualifying playoff round for fielding an ineligible player against Celtic.

UEFA says in a statement released on Tuesday that the case will be heard on Wednesday.

A team-by-team guide to the new Premier League season, which begins on Saturday. Last season's position in parentheses:

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The return of the Premier League this weekend cannot come quickly enough for English fans still lamenting their national team's worst-ever World Cup showing. With the league's riches, global reach and non-stop drama, it remains England's projection of footballing power.

But as the waning impact of English sides in Europe last season demonstrated, the Premier League's allure remains under threat from Spain. Gareth Bale left Tottenham for Real Madrid last year, and the new season begins with Luis Suarez at Barcelona rather than Liverpool.

France defender Eliaquim Mangala became Manchester City's most expensive signing of the off-season when he joined the English champions from FC Porto on Monday for a reported fee of 32 million pounds ($54 million).

Strengthening City's defense has been one of the priorities of manager Manuel Pellegrini, with the 23-year-old Mangala set to compete with Argentina international Martin Demichelis to partner Vincent Kompany at center back.

The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center said Monday it will add two threat levels to its weather outlooks so people aren't surprised by really bad storms on days with just a "slight risk" of tornadoes, hail or high winds.

Beginning Oct. 22, forecasters can say whether slight risk days are "enhanced" or "marginal" or just plain "slight." Other categories remain, including "high" and "moderate."

A man suspected in the deaths of two United Nations peacekeepers in 1980 admitted Monday that he entered the United States without proper documentation and agreed to return to his native Lebanon.

Mahmoud Bazzi, 71, wants to return to Lebanon through a route that does not take him through Europe, his attorney Karim Ajluni told immigration court in Detroit.

Is helping a pal win a contract just being friendly? What's wrong with taking the kids to the beach in the office car? And why not linger over lunch at the trattoria if things aren't too hectic at work? These are the kinds of questions that city bureaucrats pondered recently in Florence in what has been billed as Italy's first anti-corruption class for public officials.

Italy, the birthplace of the Mafia, is notorious for its problems with corruption — and these days it's awash with scandals that have tainted some of its most important public works projects. But the lessons in Florence took aim at more mundane problems: the little instances of everyday corruption that many Italians don't even recognize as being wrong.