The United States said it was "very concerned" about a Syrian offensive in Aleppo, Syria, but rejected comparisons to Libya where NATO-led forces intervened last year to protect civilians.

"We are very concerned about the situation in Aleppo," White House spokesman Jay Carney said, condemning Syrian President Bashar Assad's "heinous, reprehensible" assault on Syrian civilians.

Six suspected rebels, including three women, have been killed in a security sweep in Russia's restive North Caucasus, the interior ministry said on Friday.

The ministry's spokesman in the Caspian Sea province of Dagestan, Vyacheslav Gasanov, said special forces cornered the suspects in a private house in the regional capital, Makhachkala. He said they refused to surrender and five of them were killed in a skirmish on Friday.

U.S. cult director Terrence Malick premieres his "To the Wonder" starring Ben Affleck at a crisis-themed Venice film festival next month alongside new talent from Guatemala, Nepal and Saudi Arabia.

Hollywood hunk Affleck, who stars in Malick's romantic drama, is expected on the red carpet of the world's oldest film festival, along with stars including Javier Bardem and Kate Hudson, organizers said Thursday.

Irish actor Pierce Brosnan, star of Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" and a former James Bond incarnation, was among some 2,700 fans cheering U.S. pop icon Madonna at her Paris concert Thursday.

"We know her, my wife wanted to come so we bought tickets," Brosnan told Agence France Presse.

Michael Jackson's mother Katherine returned to her grandchildren Thursday after a family battle led a U.S. judge to transfer the guardianship of the late singer's three children to his nephew TJ.

Late singer Jackson's 14-year-old daughter Paris -- who had been broadcasting her fears about her grandmother's whereabouts on Twitter for days -- tweeted "grandma's here! #thankyougod" in the early morning hours.

Few people today will have heard of Lucian Horwitz, an Austrian cellist from the early 20th century who played in Europe's top orchestras and appeared frequently as a soloist.

But Horwitz and dozens of other musicians are the focus of an exhibition, which coincides with Bayreuth's annual Richard Wagner Festival, on the anti-Semitic and Nazi history that still haunts the world-famous event.

A toy company is suing Lady Gaga for more than $10 million, claiming the pop star sabotaged a deal to make a doll in her likeness that would play snippets of her music.

In a suit filed in New York City on Tuesday, MGA Entertainment, the maker of the popular Bratz doll line, said it paid a $1 million advance to the company that handles Gaga's merchandizing and spent a mint racing to meet deadlines to ship the dolls this summer.

Ronald Weasley certainly recognizes a goblet of fire.

Rupert Grint — who played Ron in the famous Harry Potter films — lent a touch of Hogwarts magic to the Olympic torch relay Wednesday by carrying the flame for a leg in northwest London.

Celebrated Brazilian author Paulo Coelho released his latest novel Wednesday, "Manuscript Found in Accra," examining "values that span time."

It is Coelho's 22nd offering -- previous works, including "The Alchemist," "Veronica Decides to Die" and "The Zahir," have sold over 140 million copies in 73 languages.

A judge has given temporary guardianship of late singer Michael Jackson's three children to his nephew TJ amid a dispute over the supposed disappearance of the family's matriarch.

Katherine Jackson, the late singer's mother, had custody of Paris, Prince Michael and Blanket, but Judge Mitchell Beckloff suspended that arrangement because she had left the family home in Los Angeles.