The world's newest snake has menacing-looking yellow and black scales, dull green eyes and two spiky horns. And it's named after a 7-year-old girl.

Matilda's Horned Viper was discovered in a small patch of southwest Tanzania about two years ago and was introduced last month as the world's newest known snake species in an issue of Zootaxa.

Japan gave a boost Thursday to the U.S. campaign to sanction Iran over its nuclear program, pledging to buy less Iranian oil, a day after China reacted coolly to the U.S. effort.

Iran's "nuclear development problem can't be ignored by the world, so from that perspective we understand the U.S. actions," Finance Minister Jun Azumi told reporters after meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who was visiting Tokyo after two days in Beijing.

Israel's Supreme Court has rejected constitutional challenges to a law that makes it more difficult for Palestinians to get permission to live with their Israeli spouses inside Israel.

The ruling indicates that six judges ruled in favor of maintaining the law late Wednesday. Five were against.

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel telephoned on Wednesday Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb of the Azhar mosque in Egypt, praising him on the Azhar’s bill of rights on basic liberties that was published on Tuesday.

Gemayel said in a statement: “The historic document included the general values that need to be followed in the Arab revolts and in the regimes that would be established as a result of these revolts.”

Attempting to move on after a highly disappointing 2011, Ferrari will introduce its completely revised 2012 car on February 3.

Team principal Stefano Domenicali made the announcement on Wednesday at Ferrari's annual winter retreat in the Italian Dolomites.

Germany's economy is expected to have slipped into reverse in the last quarter of 2011 in spite of showing an overall growth for the year of 3 percent, the country's Federal Statistics Office revealed Wednesday.

The country's annual growth rate was achieved in spite of the financial crisis in Europe which has other economies such as Greece, Spain and Italy struggling with huge debts.

Debt-crippled Greece's budget deficit is expected to hit 9.6 percent of economic output in 2011, about half a percentage point above target, the development minister acknowledged Wednesday.

Michalis Chryssochoidis said that an increase in the use of European Union structural development funds had contributed to lowering government overspending from 10.6 percent of gross domestic product in 2010.

An Israeli hacker has posted information online about hundreds of Saudis, Egyptians, Syrians and others — a new salvo in the cyber war launched by an alleged Saudi hacker who leaked details about thousands of Israelis last week, an Israeli newspaper reported Wednesday.

The information was posted on the pastebin site late Tuesday by a hacker who identified himself as a soldier in an Israeli intelligence unit, the Yediot Ahronot daily said. He said he was not afraid of a "hacking war" between Israeli and Arab hackers.

Egyptian Islamists and other activists vowed Wednesday to prevent Israelis from making an annual pilgrimage to the tomb of a 19th-century Jewish holy man in the Nile Delta.

Pilgrimage opponents have decided to stage protests on roads leading to the tomb of Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira in the village of Daymouta, 180 kilometers (112 miles) north of Cairo, said Gamal Heshmat of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group which is the country's best organized political movement.

College-age drinkers average nine drinks when they get drunk, government health officials said Tuesday. That surprising statistic is part of a new report highlighting the dangers of binge drinking, which usually means four to five drinks at a time.

Overall, about 1 in 6 U.S. adults surveyed said they had binged on alcohol at least once in the previous month, though it was more than 1 in 4 for those ages 18 to 34.