A Southern California man stuck a butter knife into his belly in a failed bid at self-surgery to remove a painful hernia, police said Tuesday.

The wife of the 63-year-old Glendale man called the emergency dispatcher on Sunday night and told the operator her husband was using a knife to remove a protruding hernia, Sgt. Tom Lorenz said.

Bayern Munich winger Arjen Robben is set to miss the first round of the German Cup on Monday after injuring his ankle in a preseason tournament.

A scan on Wednesday showed that the Dutch international received a small crack in his right ankle during Bayern's match against Milan on Tuesday. He was replaced in the second half.

An unemployed truck driver was charged Wednesday with hacking into an Australian broadband network provider in an alleged crime that police say could have caused significant damage to the national Internet infrastructure.

David Cecil, 25, was charged in a court in New South Wales state with hacking into one of the National Broadband Network's service providers and numerous other businesses and websites in Australia and overseas since May.

German drug and chemicals company Merck KgaA on Wednesday lowered its earnings outlook after reporting a loss for the second quarter, when it wrote down the value of its acquisitions Serono and Millipore.

The net loss of €86 million ($125 million) compared with a net profit of €183 million in the second quarter of 2010. Revenues rose 16 percent to €2.55 billion.

LG Electronics, a top global manufacturer of mobile phones and flat-screen TVs, said second-quarter net profit plunged as sales declined and its mobile phone business remained in the red.

LG earned 108.4 billion won ($103.3 million) in the three months ended June 30, the company said Wednesday. That was down 87.3 percent from net profit of 856.4 billion won a year earlier.

Syrian security forces shot dead at least 11 people in a swoop on the town of Kanaker near Damascus early Wednesday, a human rights activist said.

"The security forces raided homes at dawn on Wednesday and during the operation 11 people were shot dead and more than 250 arrested," head of the National Organization for Human Rights Ammar Qurabi told Agence France Presse.

In the '70s you had your bellbottoms and in the '80s your tight designer jeans. In the '90s, you went from distressed grungy to dressy denim, and then came the skinny-jean revolution in the 2000s.

But, say insiders, there isn't a defining denim trend heading into the important fall shopping season this year — and that's expected to be a good thing for the women's apparel market.

When's the last time you were guiltily scraping your way to the bottom of an ice cream carton and noticed this message: "150 calories per 1 pint" (half liter)?

Yes, per pint (half lifter).

What's on top of the school supply list this year? It isn't T-shirts and tennis shoes. It's the other T, for mobile tech.

Kids as young as elementary age are looking for smartphone upgrades, while the college set is sussing out the explosion in tablets, said Craig Johnson, president of the retail consulting and research firm Customer Growth Partners in New Canaan, Connecticut.

An apple a day may keep the doctor away. But when you put it in a Happy Meal, it might help keep regulators at bay too. McDonald's on Tuesday said that it would add apple slices and reduce the portion of French fries in its children's meal boxes beginning this fall, effectively taking away consumers' current choice between either having apples with caramel dip or fries as a Happy Meal side.

The move by McDonald's, which has become a leader in moving from just burgers and fries to more nutritious fare like oatmeal and salads, comes as fast food chains face intense scrutiny from health officials and others who blame the industry for childhood obesity and other health-related problems. Some municipalities, including San Francisco, have even banned fast food restaurants from selling kids' meals with toys.