A suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of international troops in an eastern district of the Afghan capital Kabul on Friday, killing three service members and wounding six Afghans, officials said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the insurgent group was behind the attack. Television images showed remains of the exploded car littering the street, and several armored vehicles stopped nearby.

The dented metal pizza trays are packed away, so too the old blender that never worked when it was needed. Gone is the sweet smell of rising dough that infused Julio Cesar Hidalgo's Havana apartment when he and his girlfriend were in business for themselves, churning out cheesy pies for hungry costumers.

Two years on the front lines of Cuba's experiment with limited free market capitalism has left Hidalgo broke, out of work and facing a possible crushing fine. But the 33-year-old known for his wide smile and sunny disposition says the biggest loss is harder to define.

Everyone is in Bruno Mars' ear about one thing when it comes to performing the Super Bowl halftime show: How will you deal with the freezing cold?

"Everyone's putting the fear of god in me like there's going to be a blizzard," Mars said in a phone interview this month from Los Angeles, asking about the weather conditions in the New York-New Jersey area for his "research."

The U.S. government is preparing to regulate the new field of hand and face transplants like it does standard organ transplants, giving more Americans who are disabled or disfigured by injury, illness or combat a chance at this radical kind of reconstruction.

Among the first challenges is deciding how people should consent to donate these very visible body parts that could improve someone's quality of life — without deterring them from traditional donation of hearts, lungs and other internal organs needed to save lives.

With India's wedding season in full swing, the glass sales counters in Mumbai's famed Zhaveri gold bazaars are crowded with customers eyeing elaborate headpieces, nose rings and necklaces. No one does jewelry quite like an Indian bride, who by tradition wears all the gold she can stand up in and her family can afford.

These days, though, even the most ambitious bridal budgets don't bring the bling like they used to, thanks to hikes in import duties and a rise in local gold prices that have shoppers like Rajanikant Mehta grumbling.

Ed Currie holds one of his world-record Carolina Reaper peppers by the stem, which looks like the tail of a scorpion.

On the other end is red fruit with a punch of heat nearly as potent as most pepper sprays used by police.

Mix blatant bigotry with poor spelling. Add a dash of ALL CAPS. Top it off with a violent threat. And there you have it: A recipe for the worst of online comments.

Blame anonymity, blame politicians, blame human nature. But a growing number of websites are reining in online commentary. Companies including Google and The Huffington Post are trying everything from deploying moderators to forcing people to use their real names. Some sites, such as Popular Science, are banning comments altogether.

Americans waited until the last minute to buy holiday gifts, but retailers weren't prepared for the spike.

Heavy spending in the final days of the mostly lackluster season sent sales up 3.5 percent between Nov. 1 and Tuesday, according to MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, which tracks payments but doesn't give dollar figures.

A Roman Catholic church official in the U.S. who has been in prison for more than a year for his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints had his conviction reversed and was ordered released Thursday.

Monsignor William Lynn has been the first U.S. church official ever charged or convicted for the handling of clergy-abuse complaints.

A trio of Israeli stage actors is refusing to perform in an acclaimed play before a theater in a West Bank Jewish settlement, part of a burgeoning domestic movement against the government's settlement policies.

The protest mirrors a global movement against the settlements that has put Israel's government in an increasingly difficult situation as the current round of peace talks with the Palestinians continues.