Computers, like humans, can learn. But when Google tries to fill in your search box based only on a few keystrokes, or your iPhone predicts words as you type a text message, it's only a narrow mimicry of what the human brain is capable.

The challenge in training a computer to behave like a human brain is technological and physiological, testing the limits of computer and brain science. But researchers from IBM Corp. say they've made a key step toward combining the two worlds.

U.S. President Barack Obama demanded Thursday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "step aside" and imposed tough sanctions on Damascus including an asset freeze and ban on U.S. investments in Syria.

"We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way. He has not led. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside," Obama said.

hat old moon might not be as antique as once thought, some scientist think. They say it is possible that it is not a day over 4.4 billion years old.

But other astronomers disagree with a new study's conclusions. They think the moon is up to its typical age-defying tricks and is really pushing 4.6 billion as they have suspected all these years.

MetroPCS Communications Inc., America's fifth-largest wireless phone carrier, is jumping into the unlimited music business behind its smaller competitor, Cricket.

The company said Wednesday it is now offering unlimited on-the-go access to 12 million tracks through subscription music provider Rhapsody. The plan is bundled with unlimited voice, text and Web access on Android-powered smartphones for $60 a month.

Downbeat Japanese export and British retail sales figures renewed worries over the state of the global economy on Thursday and hit already fragile confidence in stock markets.

Investors are worried about both the debt situation in both the U.S. and Europe and the pace of the global economic recovery following a run of weak economic data.

Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday denounced the profit-at-all-cost mentality he says is behind Europe's current economic crisis. The pontiff insisted that morals and ethics must play a greater role in formulating economic policy in the future.

"Man must be at the center of the economy and the economy must not be measured only by the maximization of profit but according to the common good," the pontiff told reporters aboard his plane as he traveled to Madrid for the Catholic Church's World Youth Day.

Russia's space agency says it has lost contact with a communications satellite shortly after its launch.

The Express-AM4 satellite was launched early Thursday atop a Proton-M booster rocket from the Russia-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Tucked away in a nondescript office park in northern Kentucky, Noah's followers are rebuilding his ark.

The biblical wooden ship built to weather a worldwide flood was 500 feet long and about 80 feet high, according to Answers in Genesis, a Christian ministry devoted to a literal telling of the Old Testament.

Jurors on Wednesday saw a videotape of a woman squirting hot sauce in the mouth of her adopted son and then making him stand in a cold shower in a case that caused a public uproar in Russia after the video aired on the "Dr. Phil" show.

Jessica Beagley is charged with misdemeanor child abuse. Beagley's lawyer said she was punishing the 7-year-old boy from Russia because he misbehaved in school and then lied about it.

Coco Chanel: A fashion icon whose name has become shorthand for timeless French chic, a shrewd businesswoman who overcame a childhood of poverty to build a luxury supernova and ... a Nazi spy?

A new book by a Paris-based American historian suggests Chanel not only had a wartime affair with a German aristocrat and spy, but that she herself was also an agent of Germany's Abwehr military intelligence organization and a rabid anti-Semite.