Bodies tense and noses twitching, the dogs sniff the fertile hunting ground before them: a lower Manhattan alley, grimy, dim and perfect for rats. With a terse command — "Now!" — the chase is on.

Circling, bounding over and pawing at a mound of garbage bags, the four dogs quickly have rodents on the run.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured stunning views of a monster hurricane at Saturn's North Pole.

The eye of the cyclone is an enormous 1,250 miles (2,010 kilometers) across. That's 20 times larger than the typical eye of a hurricane here on Earth. And it's spinning super-fast. Clouds at the outer edge of the storm are whipping around at 330 mph (531 kph).

Despite significant improvements since the hard-line Taliban ruled Afghanistan, religious freedom remains poor, especially for minorities, and Afghans still can't debate religion or question prevailing Islamic orthodoxies without fear of being punished, a U.S. commission said in a new report on Tuesday.

As the country braces for next year's presidential election and the planned withdrawal of most foreign combat troops by the end of 2014, the panel urges the U.S. government and its allies to work harder to promote religious rights in the war-torn nation.

Japan manufacturing and employment showed slight improvements in March, buttressing hopes that the economy may be headed for a moderate recovery.

Factory output rose 0.2 percent, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Tuesday, in the fourth straight monthly increase. It pointed to strength in chemicals, electrical components, telecommunications equipment and steam turbines.

Tokyo's governor Naoki Inose apologized on Tuesday for making critical comments about rival candidate Istanbul in the bidding for 2020 Olympics.

Inose, who is also chairman of the bid committee, was quoted in the New York Times last weekend suggesting that Istanbul is less developed and less equipped to host the games than the Japanese capital.

The Atlanta Hawks withstood an Indiana comeback over the final two quarters to even their first round playoff series with a 102-91 victory over the Pacers in Game 4 on Monday, while the Brooklyn Nets cut the Chicago Bulls' lead to 3-2 with a 110-91 win in their series.

The Houston Rockets avoided a series sweep to the Oklahoma City Thunder with a 105-103 win.

Aston Villa moved closer to avoiding relegation from the Premier League after Christian Benteke scored a second-half hat trick in a 6-1 thrashing of Sunderland on Monday.

The Belgian international scored in the 55th, 60th and 72nd minutes at Villa Park to tally 22 league goals and 27 in all competitions in his first season at the club.

Activists said Tuesday that at least 15 opposition fighters have been killed in a battle with Syrian government troops for a military helicopter base in the country's north.

The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights said fighting between rebels and President Bashar Assad's troops is raging around the Mannagh base in the northern province of Aleppo.

Michael Jackson's mother accused the promoter of his doomed final tour of sacrificing the troubled star in a "ruthless" pursuit of profit in the months before his 2009 death.

At the opening of a trial pitting Katherine Jackson against AEG Live, her lawyer Brian Panish alleged the promoter was negligent in hiring doctor Conrad Murray, who was convicted in 2011 of causing Jackson's death.

The China Institute Gallery has been transformed into an ancient cave, taking visitors back more than a millennium to a dazzling world where Buddhist worshipers adorned the walls with colorful frescoes, silk prayer banners and lavishly painted life-size clay sculptures.

"Dunhuang: Buddhist Art at the Gateway of the Silk Road" features a replica of an 8th century cave carved into the limestone cliffs at the edge of the Gobi Desert southeast of the oasis town of Dunhuang from 366 to about 1300.