A major Chinese online commerce site has banned sales of software used to bypass Internet censorship amid Beijing's efforts to block the development of a Middle East-style protest movement.

But Taobao.com, part of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, said it took the action on its own and received no official order.

Google says it will soon make available images of the Amazon rain forest on its Street View mapping service.

Spokesman Fabio Sabba says Google began taking photographs of Amazon rivers and trails in a partnership with a local environmental group called Fundacao Amazonia Sustentavel.

A chance meeting in an airport lobby between the top executives of Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. has evolved into a deal between the auto giants to jointly develop a gas-electric hybrid engine for pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.

The companies signed the agreement Monday to share development costs, saying they want to make the technology more affordable for customers and bring it to market faster. Many details have yet to be worked out, but both said their vehicles would remain unique even if they share the same drive systems.

This time around, the United States is saying no to the Olympics.

Locked in a dispute over millions of dollars, the U.S. Olympic Committee pulled the plug Monday on a bid for the 2020 Summer Games before the International Olympic Committee could say no to the Americans, as it has the last two times. The two sides have been at odds over a revenue-sharing agreement for years.

Tourists and Washingtonians were about to get their first up-close look Monday at the memorial to the civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The site was set to open without fanfare around 11 a.m. to kick off a week of celebrations ahead of Sunday's official dedication.

A woman put hot sauce in her adopted 7-year-old son's mouth not to punish the Russian boy for lying but to come up with sensational footage to get on the "Dr. Phil" self-help TV show, a prosecutor argued Monday.

Jessica Beagley, 36, recorded the punishment on Oct. 21, 2010 for a show segment titled "Mommy Confessions," said prosecutor Cynthia Franklin. The Anchorage woman faces misdemeanor child abuse charges stemming from the footage.

The first Facebook employees are just getting settled at the company's new Menlo Park, California headquarters, but the online social network is already talking about expanding. The San Jose Mercury News reported Monday (http://bit.ly/nOtBTW ) that Facebook has filed plans to build a second campus across the street from the complex it acquired from Sun Microsystems.

Menlo Park development services manager Justin Murphy tells the newspaper that the move suggests Facebook will quickly outgrow the 1 million square foot (0.09 million square meter) Sun campus, which can hold up to 3,600 workers. Facebook has had 1,500 people working at its old Palo Alto headquarters.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's family is growing — representatives for the actors say the couple is expecting their third child.

A one-sentence statement released Monday says the actors are "thrilled" to have another baby on the way. The couple has two daughters, 5-year-old Violet and 2-year-old Seraphina Elizabeth Rose Affleck.

Aretha Franklin is already a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but this fall, she'll be honored by the hall once again, as part of its American Music Masters series.

The Queen of Soul will be the subject of a week-long celebration by the hall and Case Western Reserve University. It kicks off Oct. 31, includes an all-day symposium and ends with an all-star tribute concert on Nov. 5. Performers for that show have yet to be announced.

Three suspected Mexican drug smugglers have found out the hard way that unlike their boat, marijuana floats.

Mexican marines say they rescued three suspected smugglers whose boat was sinking on the Pacific Ocean and then arrested them after finding bales of marijuana floating around the vessel.