Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris are again taking steps toward the altar, more than a year after the centerfold canceled their previous engagement and was branded a "runaway bride" in Playboy.

The couple obtained a marriage license Tuesday at a courthouse in Beverly Hills.

A man who climbed naked onto an equestrian statue in London's government district, ripped off its sword and bit it has been sentenced to 12 weeks in jail.

Dan Motrescu brought central London traffic to a standstill when he mounted the bronze statue of the 19th-century Duke of Cambridge on Nov. 23.

Oklahoma City and Memphis continued their impressive starts to the NBA season with hard-fought wins on Tuesday while the Miami Heat suffered a shock defeat by a Washington team that went into the game with a 1-13 record.

Oklahoma City Thunder seemed to be making light work of a seemingly difficult assignment away to the Brooklyn Nets when they cruised to a 16-point lead. However Brooklyn rallied and whittled the gap down to just two points, only for the Thunder to steady and notch a 117-111 win.

Fernando Llorente announced he will leave Spanish club Athletic Bilbao at the end of the season and blamed the media for souring relations with the club and its fans.

The 27-year-old striker, who rose through the junior ranks of the Basque club, said he had been unlucky and denied money was an issue why his career hadn't worked out at Bilbao.

European champion Chelsea will welcome a chance to rebound from a disappointing showing in both the Premier and Champions Leagues when it travels to Japan for the Club World Cup starting Thursday.

Chelsea coach Rafa Benitez is enduring a difficult return to the Premier League after two years, with the fans against him and the team underperforming. The December 6-16 tournament is a chance to improve the fortunes of the team he inherited from the fired Roberto Di Matteo last month.

Paris Saint-Germain and Schalke sealed top spot in their Champions League groups on Tuesday, while Cristiano Ronaldo scored his tournament-leading sixth goal to help Real Madrid beat Ajax 4-1.

A 17-minute snow delay during the Dinamo Zagreb-Dynamo Kiev match offered something unexpected on a night when all places in the last 16 were decided before kickoff.

Salmon that is genetically modified to grow twice as fast as normal could soon show up on dinner plates — if the company that makes the fish can stay afloat.

After weathering concerns about the safety and environment impact of the salmon, Aquabounty in 2010 was to poised to become the world's first company to sell fish whose DNA has been altered to speed up growth. But the a government agency has not approved the fish, and Aquabounty is running out of money.

The lions that roam Africa's savannahs have lost as much as 75 percent of their habitat in the last 50 years as humans overtake their land and the lion population dwindles, said a study released Tuesday.

Researchers at Duke University, including prominent conservationist Stuart Pimm, warn that the number of lions across the continent have dropped to as few as 32,000, with populations in West Africa under incredible pressure.

For Alzheimer's patients and their families, desperate for an effective treatment for the epidemic disease, there's hope from new studies starting up and insights from recent ones that didn't quite pan out.

If the new studies succeed, a medicine that slows or even stops progression of the brain-destroying disease might be ready in three to five years, said Dr. William H. Thies, chief medical officer of the Alzheimer's Association. The group assists patients and caregivers, lobbies for more research and helps fund studies.

European Union finance ministers are trying to set up a united banking supervisor to better deal with future financial crises.

The 27 ministers hope to have a deal by the end of the year that will give the European Central Bank wide-ranging authority over banks. They remain divided over whether the ECB should oversee all banks or only the largest.