Government troops are building their forces around the city of Aleppo with 20,000 troops and large numbers of tanks, fighter jets and artillery. President Assad’s forces are pushing into the two key rebel-controlled regions in an attempt to regain control of the area. A rebel spokesman said the army was moving toward the historic old center, as onlookers fear a full-scale battle in the next few days. In Damascus, state troops are claiming they have pushed the rebel armies from their final strongholds, and that the Free Syrian Army has withdrawn, though those reports have not been verified.

Usain Bolt defied doubters to win gold in the men’s 100 meters on Sunday. Bolt finished the race in an Olympic record of 9.63 seconds, the second fastest time ever behind the 9.58 seconds he ran in 2009. Yohan Blake, Bolt’s Jamaican training partner, won silver with a time of 9.75 seconds. The victory made Bolt, who also won in 2008, the first man to win repeat gold medals in the 100 meters on the track. Later in the games, Bolt will attempt to become the first man repeat wins in both the 100 and 200 meters.

According to police, at least seven people, including a gunman, have been shot and killed at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis. The alleged shooter was a white male with two handguns, according to early reports. The shooting reportedly took place around 10:45 a.m. local time, and between eight and 20 people are thought to have been injured, including the police officer who first responded to the attack. The police chief told reporters they do not currently believe there was second gunman. "The situation is very fluid. Tactical operations are ongoing," he said.

Nasa will attempt to land its Curiosity rover on Mars late Sunday night in an attempt to find out whether or not the planet may have contained microbial life. The mission is risky—two-thirds of all exploration project attempts have failed due to Mars' difficult and dangerous atmosphere. If Curiosity lands without incident it will spend 98 weeks searching Martian terrain for signs of current or past life-supporting environments. "It will be really exciting; it always is. It's electrifying but it's tense," Doug McCuistion, the director of Nasa's Mars program said.

A lightning strike killed one and injured nine more when it struck the parking lot behind a NASCAR race in Pennsylvania on Sunday. Officials say two people were taken to the hospital in critical condition, where one individual died. It’s still unclear whether the other nine injured were also struck by lightning, or sustained other injuries. The race was called at 98 of its 160 laps because of the severe weather and threat of storms.

Boxing was the last all-male Olympic sport, but no longer. On Sunday night, twelve boxing matches made history as women competed in the event for the first time. The International Boxing Association approved of women's boxing as a Olympic sport in 2009, and 36 female boxers are now competing in this year’s Games. “Women have been waiting, waiting, waiting, for the day women’s boxing will be included in the Olympics,” said Indian boxer Mary Kom.

Jared Loughner, who killed six people in the Arizona shooting rampage that critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, is expected to plead guilty and agree to a life sentence Tuesday. Loughner, a diagnosed schizophrenic, was originally deemed unfit to stand trial by a federal judge.

At least 16 Egyptian policemen are dead and 7 are wounded after an armed attack on the Israeli-Egyptian border Sunday. Egyptian state television is reporting that an unnamed Islamist militant group is believed to be behind the attack, in an attempt to storm Israel’s border. Egyptian forces say the “group of terrorists” stole a police vehicle and fired live ammunition at officers at the Gaza border crossing, killing 16 Egyptian officers. The Israeli Air Force targeted one of the stolen vehicles before the second exploded at the border before crossing.

Police in Pakistan have been suspended after allegedly making a man and woman march naked to a police station for attempting sex outside of marriage. A video taken by a witness shows police beating a naked man. It also appears to show a woman imploring police to allow her to cover her body. While this sort of public shaming is not considered completely out of the ordinary in Pakistan, the fact that police carried it out shocked many Pakistanis. Mumtaz Mirbahar, the man shown being beaten by police on the video, has been released from prison, but his alleged partner remains in custody.

Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied tied the knot in a Jewish ceremony on the Big Sur coast in California Saturday night. Portman met the French dancer and choreographer on the set of Black Swan in 2009. The two announced their engagement and the birth of their first child later the next year. "I now have the possibility of taking on French nationality. It would accomplish the Francophile dreams of my father and myself," she recently told a French magazine.

Former members of the armed forces trying to register their businesses under a new certification system have met mountains of red tape, legislators and veterans activists said. The antifraud system was instituted by the Department of Veterans Affairs. One veteran had to deal with automated messages telling him to wait long periods—in one case 4,116 minutes—on the phone as he tried to clear up an issue regarding his construction company’s eligibility to bid on contracts for disabled vets. “It was comical, but at the same time it really bothered me, because my business is at stake,” Navy veteran Neeson Levinson said.

More than 800 pieces of Afghanistan’s cultural history that disappeared in the chaos of the country’s civil war have been returned to the nation’s capital. The British Museum of London helped arrange for the recovery of the 843 artifacts returned to Afghanistan in a ceremony Sunday, including some pieces that are as much as 4,000 years old. Thousands of pieces that once rested in Afghanistan’s National Museum were destroyed during the civil war that swept the country in the 1990s, and hundreds of other priceless objects, including many of the pieces returned Sunday, were scattered around the world on the black market.

British tennis player Andy Murray beat Roger Federer when the two squared off Sunday morning to contend for the Olympic singles gold at Wimbledon. Murray, with the hometown crowd on his side, seized the chance to avenge his Wimbledon loss to Federer of under a month ago, when Federer bested him in four sets. Venus and Serena Williams won their third gold medal in women's doubles tennis on Sunday. Novak Djokovic lost to Juan Martin Del Potro in the bronze medal match.

A video possibly of Iranian pilgrims abducted in Damascus on Friday has emerged. Aired on the station Al Arabiya, the footage purports to show the group of Iranians surrounded by Syrian rebels—including one who says that the Iranians include members of the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard and that they were on a “reconnaissance mission.” Forty-eight people were abducted during a visit to a shrine in Syria, Iranian state media said, and government officials reportedly requested help from Turkey and Qatar to secure the group’s freedom.

The Obama campaign is betting that big investments now will pay off in the fall, as the incumbent empties his coffers at an unusually fast rate for a modern sitting president. Since last year, the president’s team has spent about $400 million, much of it on voter registration efforts and Democratic organization on the local level. The gamble may be a dangerous one, however—with the race heating up as the Republicans prepare to meet for their convention, presumptive nominee Mitt Romney has about $25 million more to dip into than Obama does. “This July deadline is our most urgent yet,” Obama wrote in a message to donors last week.

The mother of gymnast Gabby Douglas filed for bankruptcy in Virginia last January. Documents filed in court show that Douglas’s mother, Natalie Hawkins, listed assets of $163,706 as well as $80,000 in debt. The filing was first reported by the gossip site TMZ, and Hawkins’s attorney declined comment Sunday when approached by The Associated Press. Douglas won Olympic gold medals in both the individual and team all-around gymnastics events in London.

Intense artillery attacks on the Syrian city of Aleppo continued Sunday as Bashar al-Assad’s forces attempt to push out rebels. “It was the most violent shelling of Salaheddin since the outbreak of fighting in Aleppo,” a rights group quoted rebel commander Col. Abdel Jabbar al-Oqaidi as saying. An Al Jazeera reporter in the city confirmed the shelling and said that Syrian fighter-bombers had also been seen making strikes against sections of the city held by opposition forces. The city is home to 2.5 million people.

Goldman Sachs is getting into jails, but not in the way some Americans would like. Utilizing a social-service bond—a new financial instrument—the most notorious investment bank will put $10 million into a program to cut the recidivism rate at New York City’s Rikers Island prison. The bond will be backed by a guarantee from Bloomberg Philanthropies, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropic arm. For Goldman to get its money back on the deal, recidivism at the prison has to drop by at least 10 percent. If it falls lower than that, Goldman could make $2.1 million on its investment.

Don’t be so touchy. China called a top U.S. diplomat to task over remarks made about the country’s military presence on the South China Sea, one of the region’s hotspots. The Asian country’s foreign ministry said it wished to express “strong dissatisfaction” over the remarks. On Friday the U.S. State Department said it was keeping a weather eye on the region, and that China’s move to ramp up its military presence in the area is “counter to collaborative diplomatic efforts to resolve differences and further escalating tensions in the region.” But now it seems that merely mentioning that an action may raise tensions is itself enough to put some countries through the roof.

Actor John Travolta filed court documents Friday in which he denied allegations that he sexually assaulted a Royal Caribbean employee during a cruise. Travolta says in the new filings that he was on the 2009 trip during which former Royal Caribbean worker Fabian Zanzi has said he was “forcefully” embraced by a naked Travolta. But the actor denies that the alleged encounter ever took place. According to Zanzi, Travolta offered him $12,000 to keep mum about the incident, charges Travolta vehemently denies.

After a month of heavy rains and flooding, about 212,000 North Koreans are homeless and hundreds more are missing, the reclusive state said Saturday. North Korean media said 169 people were killed and 144 injured in a disaster that also claimed tens of thousands of residences. It’s another blow to the isolated country, which has refused to cooperate with the rest of the international community, often to the increased suffering of North Korean citizens. The floods have also reportedly damaged coal mines, which may further undermine the country’s trade and diplomatic position with the rest of the world, even as it struggles to recover from the damage.