Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told IOC inspectors Monday that much of the infrastructure needed for Madrid's 2020 Olympic bid is already built, emphasizing a low-cost approach at a time of financial austerity.

Rajoy welcomed the IOC's evaluation commission at the start of its four-day inspection of Madrid, which is competing against Tokyo and Istanbul.

Rapper Tone Loc didn't want to be hospitalized after collapsing on stage during a weekend performance in Iowa.

Loc, whose real name is Anthony T. Smith, collapsed after finishing a song during a Saturday night concert on a downtown Des Moines bridge.

Many Brazilians cast their country as racial democracy where people of different groups long have intermarried, resulting in a large mixed-race population. But you need only turn on the TV, open the newspaper or stroll down the street to see clear evidence of segregation.

In Brazil, whites are at the top of the social pyramid, dominating professions of wealth, prestige and power. Dark-skinned people are at the bottom of the heap, left to clean up after others and take care of their children and the elderly.

The soaring half domes of the Martyr Monument stand out against the drabness of eastern Baghdad, not far from where Saddam Hussein's feared eldest son was said to torture underperforming athletes.

Saddam built the split teardrop-shaped sculpture in the middle of a manmade lake in the early 1980s to commemorate Iraqis killed in the Iran-Iraq War. The names of hundreds of thousands of fallen Iraqi soldiers are inscribed in simple Arabic script around the base.

Photos and mementoes that were snatched up and blown hundreds of miles during tornados in the south of the United States two years ago are giving researchers new insight on how debris is carried by the storms and how it could threaten the public.

A new study has documented how one photo traveled nearly 220 miles (355 kilometers) over Alabama and Tennessee, said John Knox, an associate professor of geography at the University of Georgia who led the research. That is among the longest-documented trajectories of tornado debris.

Members of Syria's main opposition group were on Monday meeting in Turkey to form a rival government to President Bashar Assad's regime.

Twelve candidates are running for the job of an interim prime minister for areas the rebels control. The candidates are mostly exile-based technocrats, although two of the nominees live in the government-controlled areas.

The king of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan has one.

The first family of India's Hindi film industry, the Bachchans, own one.

China's new leaders turned Saturday to veteran technocrats with greater international experience to staff a Cabinet charged with overhauling a slowing economy and pursuing a higher global profile for the country without triggering opposition.

The ceremonial legislature approved nearly three dozen trusted politicians, experienced officials and career diplomats who make up the State Council. Their appointment largely completes a once-a-decade transfer of power to a new generation of communist leaders.

When three-time Olympian Chirine Njeim hits the slopes in the United States or Europe, somebody inevitably asks the questions.

You're from Lebanon? Where do you ski there, in the desert?

A small plane crashed into a parking lot near a South Florida airport Friday afternoon, killing all three people on board and burning about a dozen vehicles. No one on the ground was hurt.

Fire-Rescue Division Chief John San Angelo said the Piper Navajo, a twin-engine turboprop, began experiencing engine trouble shortly after taking off from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport at about 4:30 p.m.