Super Bowl ads: An appeal to family

The ads for this year’s Super Bowl ran the gamut from popular TV shows to celebrity cameos to motherly love — but the oddest and most omnipresent theme was men without pants.

There is nothing else like the Burj Dubai on Earth. As the project is metaphoric for the strength of Samsung Construction, the company itself symbolizes the growth of South Korea onto the world stage.

China’s GDP increases 8.9 percent for the third quarter, moving closer toward the goal of 8 percent growth for the year. China’s economy has been picking up pace this year, growing at 6.1 percent the first quarter and 7.9 percent the second quarter.

Gadgets are not soft and cuddly, and there are no downloadable upgrades for slobbering mutts. But with enthusiasm for pets growing unabated, and technology digging ever deeper into our lives, the two seemingly unrelated worlds increasingly touch.

Union officials were going to court Thursday in London to try to stop British Airways from imposing contractual changes on its 14,000-member cabin crew.

Airlines are uncertain about when commercial service to disaster-ravaged Haiti will resume. In the meantime, some carriers are organizing relief efforts.

U.S. innovation slowed this year for the first time in 13 years as the recession cut into budgets, and costs to protect inventions rose.

Shortly after McDonalds’ celebrated its 30-year presence in France, the fast-food chain is conquering one of the country’s most valued cultural institutions –the Louvre.

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A judge has ruled that the famous flute riff in Men at Work’s Australian rock anthem “Land Down Under” plagiarized a popular nursery rhyme about a Kookaburra written in 1932.

Located in a remote area of Cambodia, the ancient Khmer city of Banteay Chhmaris, being less famous than Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Wat, is free of clusters of camera-toting tourists and souvenir hawkers.

Stocks ended with modest losses Thursday, fighting off a bigger decline that surrounded the latest worries about Greece’s debt crisis and weaker-than-expected reports on the economy.

What a difference a decade makes. The “Noughties” saw environmental issues come to the forefront with a marked shift toward all things green in politics, technology and perhaps most importantly, society.

A man claiming to be al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri blasts the Turkish government, comparing its troops in Afghanistan to Israeli troops in the Palestinian states and calling Turkey’s actions “a crime against Islam.”

China hosted Japan and South Korea on Saturday for the second trilateral leaders’ meeting, state-run media said.

Federal investigators are looking into whether the problem with Toyota gas pedals goes beyond the fix announced by the company Monday and involves the vehicles’ electrical system.