The Red Cross was not able to rescue two Western journalists from Homs, despite being able to rescue seven people from Baba Amr. Edith Bouvier, a reporter with Le Figaro, and British photographer Paul Conroy, who works for the Sunday Times, were wounded when the Assad regime targeted a makeshift media center on Wednesday. They had asked for help leaving the city, but the Red Cross was unable to get to them and the two bodies of journalists killed in the fighting. Government forces said armed groups refused to turn over the reporters, but resistance activists said the journalists refused to leave the city. The Red Cross got to Homs on Friday and has tried to negotiate the evacuation of injured civilians, but has had difficulty navigating the hatred between Assad’s forces and the opposition.

On a day when the Dow Jones stayed flat and the NASDAQ rose only 0.2 percent, the Standard & Poor’s 500 chalked up its highest close since June 2008, closing at about 1,365 points. The rise in the market comes amidst fears that the price of oil, which jumped this week in response to events around Iran’s nuclear program, may take the legs out from underneath an American economic recovery. Stocks were trading better than expected on the index after reports of improved home sales in the U.S.

The U.S. military is taking seriously Iran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, an important shipping lane through which much of the world's oil resources travel. Pentagon officials notified Congress that they plan to deploy new mine-detection and surveillance equipment in the Persian Gulf. Plans also call for the U.S. Central Command to boost its cruise-missile presence and to modify weapons systems to counteract Iran's fast-attack boats. War planners are taking steps to patch any gaps in defense capabilities in case Iran attempts to shut down the strait.

Activists in Syria said Saturday that more than 50 people were killed in Friday’s violence, including 22 people in the besieged city of Homs, which has been the center of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. Representatives of more than 60 countries meeting in Tunisia asked the United Nations to begin planning for peacekeeping missions once the fighting stops, but stopped short of committing military forces. Syrians in other parts of the country began protesting the regime, saying they were revolting for the sake of Baba Amr. 

Mitt Romney’s effort to make himself appear a man of the people was fudged yet again when he said in a speech to the Detroit Economic Club on Friday that his wife, Ann, drives “a couple of Cadillacs.” In his address at Ford Field, Romney, who was born in Detroit, said he was happy to be back in the cradle of the American auto industry. “I drive a Mustang and a Chevy pickup truck,” the candidate said. “Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually.” The reaction to Romney’s seemingly inadvertent boast about his stable of pricey automobiles wasn’t just a matter of media scrutiny—outside the stadium were hundreds of protesters, many of them members of the United Auto Workers, who were angered by Romney’s 2008 opposition to the auto bailout.

Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed documents and computer hard drives from Penn State as part of a new probe in the Sandusky child-sex-abuse case, sources tell NBC News. The subpoena is investigating a potential cover-up of Sandusky’s alleged abuse by school officials, board members, and The Second Mile. Former university vice president Gary Schultz, who was in charge of campus police when the alleged scandal occurred, is among three top former Penn State officials who have been asked to hand over all data from their computers, including internal emails. A Penn States spokes person said the university is “fully cooperating” with the subpoena.

Friday was the first day of the trial in the case involving Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers student who used a web cam to spy on roommate Tyler Clementi while Clementi was intimate with another man. After Clementi found out about the spying and subsequent online broadcast of his sexual encounter, he committed suicide. Ravi faces 10 years in prison for being charged with bias intimidation against Clementi, a hate crime. The trial is said to hinge on whether the prosecution can prove that Ravi was moved to intimidation because of an alleged dislike of gays. The prosecution said in its opening statement that Ravi’s actions “were planned to expose Tyler Clementi’s sexual orientation, and they were planned to expose Tyler Clementi’s private sexual activity.”

Tonight in Paris, Oscar-favorite The Artist won six Césars (from 10 nominations), including Best Film, Best Director for Michel Hazanavicius, and Best Actress for Bérénice Bejo. Surprisingly, Golden Globe winner Jean Dujardin—a favorite for the Best Actor prize at Sunday night's Oscars and winner of the top actor prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival for his role as silent film star George Valentin—did not take the Best Actor award at the Paris ceremony. The French academy instead gave the trophy to Omar Sy, the first black actor to win the prize, for his role in the smash-hit buddy comedy Intouchables. Sy's prize was the only win of the night (from nine nominations) for Intouchables, the third best-attended film at French theaters since World War II.

It looks like the email suggesting that Sarah Palin contemplated divorce was actually...a joke. In 2007, Palin sent an email to aide Kris Perry and Todd with the subject line "Martial Problems," asking, "if we, er, when we get a divorce, does that quell the 'conflict of interest' accusation about BP?" But another aide, Frank Bailey, responded, "VERY funny," implying that the email was just a gag to begin with. If it wasn't, Bailey probably would have mentioned it in his salacious 2011 tell-all about the former Alaska governor. In other Palin news, one of her former aides offered to “confidentially consult” on 2008 HBO election film Game Change, according to Politico.

British paper The Guardian is reporting that it’s scooped Rupert Murdoch’s new Sunday edition of The Sun with the news that Lord Lucan, the British expatriate who disappeared in 1974 after allegedly killing his nanny, is alive and well. There hasn’t been a confirmed sighting of Lucan since the mid-70s. According to the Guardian, the Sun has been sniffing after the story, and caught a break when they tracked down a man who claims to be familiar with the aristocrat’s hideout in Botswana. Though there have been dozens of unconfirmed sightings of Lucan since he began his eccentric exile, he was declared dead in 1999.

Another celebrity checks into the Betty Ford Center? Actor Gerard Butler is reportedly seeking treatment for substance abuse at the infamous California facility, TMZ reports. Butler allegedly became reliant on prescription drugs for pain management after filming 300 back in 2006. The pain and abuse of drugs have reportedly worsened since a surfing accident in December on the set of his new movie, Of Men and Mavericks. Sources say Butler has also developed issues with cocaine, but is mainly in rehab to address his abuse of prescription drugs. He’s reportedly scheduled to leave the treatment center later today.

It's no surprise that comedian and talk-show host Bill Maher is supporting President Obama's reelection campaign, but it's a bit of a shock that he has $1 million to donate—especially when he hasn't exactly been kind to super PACs. During a live stand-up show Thursday, Maher, who's railed against the GOP candidates nonstop, said he would give the money to Priorities USA Action. The pro-Obama super PAC needs the help, as a report filed this week to the Federal Election Committee show that the group only raised $58,815 in January.

It's one of the great mysteries of civilization: what killed off the Mayans? Archeologists have pointed to warfare, but a new report, published in Science, shows that the collapse of the Mayans might have been related to a "modest reduction in precipitation." In other words, a mild drought may have been enough to kill them off. Scientists have thought that a severe drought might have done it, but the researchers show a sustained 25 to 40 percent drop in rainfall could have exhausted water supplies for crops, leading to the end of the Mayans in 900 AD.

Global warming causes more extreme weather, rising oceans, melting ice caps, droughts, and animal extinction. Oh, and it might shrink you, too. A group of American scientists published a study Thursday in the journal Science that showed the prehistoric horse—in fact, the first horse—called Sifrhippus, shrank from an average of 12 pounds to about eight and a half some 56 million years ago, when the climate warmed up over thousands of years. Sifrhippus is much smaller than the modern horse—it's about the size of a cat. Scientists have known that mammals tend to shrink with global warming, but the study offered some of the first specific data on the phenomenon.

Gay-marriage proponents celebrated another win in Maryland on Thursday after the state Senate approved a measure that would legalize same-sex unions. Gov. Martin O’Malley has vowed to sign the bill, which will make Maryland the eighth state to adopt gay marriage. Even though Maryland’s legislation has a large Democratic majority, there was still quite a bit of opposition. Factions of lawmakers with Catholic and evangelical ties tried to block the bill. The Maryland House of Delegates voted last week to approve gay marriage by a thin margin—71 to 67. Despite one of the largest Democratic majorities in any state legislature, backers of gay marriage in Maryland had to overcome fierce opposition from blocks of African-American lawmakers and those with strong Catholic and evangelical views to cobble together coalitions big enough to pass both chambers.

Despite fervent anti-contraception rhetoric and a steadfast opposition to abortion, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum appears to be doing better with the fairer sex. A new poll from The Washington Post and ABC reveals that his popularity has spiked among Republican women by 13 points since January. Fifty-seven percent now hold a favorable view of the candidate, who is getting close to Mitt Romney’s level of support among women. Romney has a 61 percent favorability rating among GOP women, but he has higher unfavorability ratings.

Oops. New Year’s Eve star Zac Efron may have had a red-carpet gaffe of epic proportions: when removing his hand from his pocket, what appeared to be a condom fell out, prompting the young heartthrob to quickly pick it up and stash it away. The premiere was for the children’s animated flick Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax. Message to the children of the world: even famous people make mistakes.

Dutch prince Johan Friso is in a coma and might never regain consciousness, doctors at the Innsbruck hospital in Austria where he is being treated said on Friday. Friso was buried by an avalanche while skiing off-trail in Austria last week. He suffered massive brain damage, and doctors said it took nearly 50 minutes to revive him after he was pulled from the snow. The 43-year-old is the second son of the Netherlands's Queen Beatrix, and is married with two young daughters.

Officials said on Thursday that it could weeks to determine what caused two helicopters to collide in midair Wednesday night during routine military exercises along the Arizona-California border. Six of the dead were based at Camp Pendleton in California, and one was from a base in Yuma, Ariz. The skies were clear, but a spokesperson from the Yuma base said visibility may have been severely limited by dust, referred to as a "brown out," created by the helicopters landing and taking off. The crash is one of the Marine Corps' deadliest aviation-training accidents in years.

All copies of a sex tape involving former presidential candidate John Edwards and his mistress Rielle Hunter will be destroyed within 30 days, after Hunter won ownership of the video in a court settlement Thursday. In the civil suit, Hunter had sued Edwards's former campaign aide Andrew Young who housed Hunter and pretended her baby were theirs in a coverup of the sex scandal during the 2008 White House campaign, claiming that he took the tape and other personal items from her and described the video in his tell-all book. Young relinquished ownership in the court settlement, and also agreed not to talk publicly about the tape anymore.

Will this be the tipping point for some action on Syria? Foreign ministers from more than 50 countries, calling themselves the Friends of Syria, are holding their first meeting Friday to demand Syria allow international aid be delivered to civilians as the government continue brutal assaults on the city of Homs. A crowd of about 2,000  sympathizers of President Bashar al-Assad attempted to storm the meeting in the Tunisian capital, but were driven back by police with truncheons. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Assad that the opposition will arm itself and overthrow him if diplomacy fails. Clinton said Assad will "pay a heavy cost' if he continues to block aid, and added the Syrian leader will have "more blood on his hands." The Syrian opposition said on Friday that they had begun to receive military aid, but Western officials would not confirm the report. In Syria, there were reports that the crackdown on Homs continued, as one opposition group reported 11 dead on Friday.

A retired British businessman is being extradited to the U.S. for allegedly selling batteries for Iranian missiles, The Guardian reports. Christopher Tappin, 65, handed himself into authorities at Heathrow airport after a two-year legal battle. A former president of the Kent Golf Union, Tappin could face up to 35 years in prison if convicted in an American court, though he maintains he’s innocent and is the victim of entrapment. His high-profile case has drawn criticism of the U.K.’s extradition arrangements with both the U.S. and Europe. “I look to [David] Cameron to look after my rights, and he has failed to do so,” Tappin told The Guardian.

Fear no more, chatty traveler. A new service has begun to offer travelers the option of picking their seatmates on Facebook or LinkedIn prior to their flight. Dutch airline KLM began testing the program, called Meet and Seat, earlier this month. It allows ticket-holders to share details from their social-media profiles to allow other passengers to choose them as a potential business contact, friend or—who knows!—potential lover. The program has caught on from a similar one used by Malaysia Airlines called MHBuddy, introduced last year. In 2010, a program called Planely allowed users to submit their itineraries and look at one another’s social-media profiles. Additionally, Meet and Seat allows travelers to move seats if they don’t like who has chosen to sit next to them.

New polls out today suggest that Mitt Romney was the official winner of Wednesday night’s GOP debate in Arizona. Romney has received a bump in two polls in Michigan, taking a 6-point lead over Rick Santorum in the same poll that he trailed the former Pennsylvania senator by 4 points earlier in the week. That 10-point swing was boosted by another poll that said one in 10 Michiganders changed their minds after Wednesday-night’s debate, 27 percent of them saying they switched allegiance to the former Massachusetts governor. The same poll, conducted by Mitchell Research and Communications, saw one third of participants saying Romney was the winner of the debate compared to just 13 percent for Santorum.

It’s apparently not inaccurate to call President Obama “divisive,” whether or not the blame lies with him. According to a new Gallup poll, he almost perfectly splits participants down the middle, with 51 percent saying his political views are “too liberal.” That’s a bigger percentage than those who believe either of the main GOP presidential candidates is “too conservative”—38 percent for Rick Santorum and 33 percent for Mitt Romney. This, Gallup says, could be because Obama is more familiar to Americans than either Santorum or Romney, and Republicans overwhelmingly believe Obama is too liberal (89 percent), while Democrats aren’t as certain about Santorum (50 percent) and Romney (55 percent). Despite this, 47 percent of the people still agree with Obama’s views.

Ford Field has seen better days, even during the Detroit Lions’ 0–16 season a few years ago. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney moved a campaign event to the home of the Lions on Friday, only to watch 1,200 people show up at the 65,000-seat facility. Romney is catching flack for the eyesore of an image, which is making rounds around the Web with a picture from a February 2008 event held for then-candidate Obama at a packed XL Center in Hartford, Conn. (which seats 16,000). The Romney campaign had moved the event from a local Westin hotel after it said tickets were sold out. The Detroit Economic Club was hosting the event, and organizers made sure that live-TV cameras did not show a pan of the entire stadium. Click here to see images from both events.

At least 12 more people were killed on Friday in Afghanistan as the the outrage over the burning of Qurans by American troops continues. Protesters gathered in Kabul on Friday for the fourth day, with hundreds marching to the palace of President Hamid Karzai. The rallies turned violent Thursday, leaving at least eight people dead, including two U.S. soldiers. President Obama apologized to the Afghan people in a letter Thursday, but crowds of Afghans are unconvinced, as protests spread across the country.

Following U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s warning that Assad would “pay a heavy cost” if he continued to block aid, a mission to evacuate wounded people in the besieged city of Homs is at last underway. The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed that the rescue mission began on Friday evening. Working with volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the ICRC staff members said they had negotiated evacuations of women and children with both government and rebel forces in the district of Baba Amr, a rebel stronghold in Homs. Though seven people have been taken to local hospitals, four Western journalists—two wounded and two who were killed in Homs—have not yet been evacuated.

Yikes, Chris Brown’s legal problems could continue. A Florida fan has accused the rapper of “robbery by sudden snatching” after he allegedly grabbed her phone and ran off it with when she tried to take a picture of him. According to the police report, Christal Spann, 24, told police that she and her friends followed Brown and the rapper Tyga as the left a Miami club on Saturday and attempted to snap a photo of Brown in a black Bentley. “At this time, [Spann] stated that [Brown] reached through his car and window and snatched her phone from her hands and said ‘B---h, you ain’t gonna put that on no website,” states the police report. Brown then allegedly took off with Spann’s Apple iPhone 4S. No arrests have been made, although E! Online reported Friday that an arrest warrant is coming in the case.

Most Americans aren’t simply red or blue when it comes to their checkbooks. A new poll shows that while most of the country supports President Barack Obama’s plan to increase taxes for the wealthiest, they also favor cutting costs over upping taxes. A tax on top earners who make $1 million or more a year was supported by 65 percent of Americans in the poll, and opposed by only 26 percent. The poll may point to a shift in how Americans think about taxes, favoring a system that evens out the tax rate across income levels while simultaneously cutting government spending. Obama’s plan, nicknamed the “Buffett Rule” after the Omaha billionaire, is thought unlikely to be passed by lawmakers amid the rancor of the campaign season.

Are paywalls the new normal? They just might be after the Los Angeles Times announced Friday that the newspaper would erect a paywall on its site come March 5. The move comes nearly a year after one of the country’s biggest papers, The New York Times, launched its own paywall in March 2011. Print subscribers of the paper will get access for no additional charge, while a digital-only subscription will cost users $3.99 per week. The New York Times, meanwhile, charges digital-only subscribers a $3.75-per-week fee while giving access to print subscribers for free. Last week Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper chain, announced that all of its papers except its flagship, USA Today, would go behind a paywall.

In a confidential report released Friday, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog says Iran has rapidly expanded its production of higher-grade enriched uranium in recent months. While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expressed concerns about the country’s ability to easily and quickly build nuclear warfare, Iran dismissed inspectors’ concerns as unfounded. The IAEA report also said Iran failed to explain why it’s missing a large quantity of uranium metal, which diplomats say could be used in experiments to arm a nuclear warhead. After talks with leaders in Tehran, the agency added that Iran had refused to clear up questions regarding its nuclear program.