Lady Gaga was in the Christmas spirit at Z100's annual Jingle Ball concert, but her version of "White Christmas" would have made Bing Crosby blush.

Gaga performed a slightly naughty rendition of the holiday classic Friday night as part of her mini-concert at the radio station's event at Madison Square Garden. Gaga — sporting tight studded leather pants, matching top and a bare midriff — gyrated on a set that included antlers, Christmas trees and holiday lights as she performed "White Christmas."

Japan is extending tax breaks for low-polluting vehicles by another three years to help support the nation's mainstay auto industry.

The tax breaks, initially set to end in April, will continue until April 2015, according to a plan approved by the Cabinet on Saturday.

China's exports slowed in November, data released Saturday showed, raising the likelihood of further measures from Beijing to help prop up faltering growth and offset slack demand in the U.S. and European markets.

Exports rose 13.8 percent to $174.5 billion in November, a decline from 15.9 percent growth in October, while China's overall trade surplus plunged 35 percent from a year earlier, to $14.5 billion, Customs statistics said. Imports gained 22.1 percent to $159.9 billion, down from the previous month's 28.7 percent rise.

Authorities say a U.S. man published a fake obituary for his living mother in a ploy to get paid bereavement time off from work.

Relatives called The Jeffersonian Democrat newspaper in Pennsylvania after the obit appeared to say the woman was actually alive and well. The woman herself then visited the paper.

In a reversal of fortunes, a once-unwanted cat has come to the rescue of an animal shelter in need of a new home.

However, this orange-and-white tabby named Daniel is no typical cat. He has a near-record 26 toes, a phenomenon that is helping the nonprofit Milwaukee Animal Rescue Center raise money to relocate to a new building.

A light airplane crashed into a school building Saturday near the Philippine capital after its pilot requested an emergency landing shortly after takeoff, killing at least 13 people, including two children.

The plane burst into flames after hitting the school, said Mayor Florencio Bernabe of suburban Paranaque city.

Radioactive water leaked inside a nuclear power plant in southwestern Japan but did not escape into the environment, the government said Saturday, the latest problem for the country's nuclear industry amid an ongoing crisis at another plant.

The leak Friday at Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Genkai plant occurred as Japan continues its attempts to stabilize a tsunami-hit nuclear plant on its northeastern coast where three reactor coresmelted and large amounts of radiation were released into the air and ocean.

A gunman walked down the middle of a street in the heart of Hollywood Friday, firing on passing cars and wounding a driver before police shot and killed him.

The unidentified man, who in video clips had short hair and wore jeans and a white tank top, was pronounced dead at the scene, Los Angeles police Officer Cleon Joseph said. No officers were hurt.

The leaders of 23 European countries moved to tie their economies much closer together in a new treaty in their latest attempt to shore up the euro, but failed to get the four other European Union members, including Britain, to join in.

Following marathon all-night talks, the 23 decided to back a new treaty with strict oversight over national budgets, as they try to convince markets that the euro has a future in the wake of a crippling debt crisis.

Think poinsettia plants are passé? Had enough holly at the holidays? Try tomatoes.

Besides growing dozens of varieties of poinsettias for a national research project, the University of New Hampshire has been experimenting with dwarf tomato plants as holiday decor. Researchers grew about six dozen plants in three varieties of tomatoes and showed them off along with the poinsettias at a holiday open house recently.