It's a wildly popular website laden with unlicensed songs and Hollywood movies, a prime exhibit of the digital piracy that is strangling the music industry in Asia and eroding legitimate online sales around the world.

But a few clicks inside the free-to-download bonanza that has pushed Vietnam's Zing.vn into the globe's top 550 websites reveals a surprising presence: the American government, which maintains a bustling social media account on the site.

Microsoft bills Windows 8 as a "re-imagining" of the personal computer market's dominant operating system, but the company still has a lot of work to do before the makeover captures the imagination of most consumers, based on the results of a recent poll by The Associated Press and GfK.

The phone survey of nearly 1,200 adults in the U.S. found 52 percent hadn't even heard of Windows 8 leading up to Friday's release of the redesigned software.

Madonna drew boos and triggered a walkout by several concertgoers after she touted President Barack Obama on her "MDNA Tour" in New Orleans.

The Material Girl asked during Saturday night's performance: "Who's registered to vote?" She added: "I don't care who you vote for as long as you vote for Obama." Drawing boos in touting Obama over Republican Mitt Romney, Madonna followed: "Seriously, I don't care who you vote for ... Do not take this privilege for granted. Go vote."

The world's markets may believe that the worst of the financial crisis in Europe is over after three turbulent years, but those people who control the purse strings of the world's businesses are not breathing any easier.

An annual survey of finance directors from global business consultancy BDO finds that the crisis over too much government debt in Europe remains one of their key concerns — so much so that Greece is considered a riskier place to invest and set up business in than war-torn Syria.

Learning how to play tennis is hard enough. Now try it when you can't see.

That's what students are doing at the California School for the Blind. They're learning a form of tennis adapted for the visually impaired — and expanding the boundaries of what the blind can do.

Spanish shepherds led a flock of more than 2,000 sheep through central Madrid on Sunday in defense of ancient grazing, migration and droving rights threatened by urban sprawl and modern agricultural practices.

Many tourists and residents were surprised to see traffic cut to allow the ovine parade to bleat its way across some of Madrid's most upscale urban streets.

Golf club employees in Southern California came to the rescue when a shark dropped out of the sky and flopped around on the 12th tee.

San Juan Hills Golf Club operations director Melissa McCormack says a course marshal found the leopard shark Monday afternoon and brought it to the clubhouse. It had puncture wounds where it appeared a bird had snagged it from the Pacific Ocean, about five miles (eight kilometers) away.

Scottish airport staff got a slithery surprise when they stumbled on a Mexican serpent stowaway under a seat.

The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says quick-thinking workers at Glasgow Airport remained "remarkably calm" when they discovered the 18-inch (45-centimeter) snake Tuesday under seats in the passenger cabin of a flight from Cancun, Mexico.

Earth's largest radio telescope is growing more powerful by the day on this remote plateau high above Chile's Atacama desert, where visitors often feel like they're planting the first human footprints on the red crust of Mars.

The 16,400-foot (5,000-meter) altitude, thin air and mercurial climate here can be unbearable. Visitors must breathe oxygen from a tank just to keep from fainting. Winds reach 62 mph (100 km) and temperatures drop to 10 below zero (minus 25 Celsius).

Thousands of people in an eastern Chinese city clashed with police while protesting the proposed expansion of a petrochemical factory that they say would spew pollution and damage public health, townspeople said Saturday.

Pollution has become a major source of unrest in China, as members of the rising middle class become more outspoken against environmentally risky projects in their backyards.