Police in India charged six men with murder on Saturday, just hours after the death of their alleged victim, a woman who was gang-raped and beaten on a New Dehli bus. The victim's body was also returned to New Delhi on Saturday, where the prime minister and Congress president waited to receive her coffin with her family. The crime, which took place Dec. 16, resulted in the woman being hospitalized in New Dehli and eventually being moved to a specialized facility in Singapore, where she died of organ failure. The men face the death penalty if convicted. The event sparked protests across India, where citizens began rallying almost daily for greater protection of women, awareness of sexual violence, and police vigilance of sexual crimes.

President Obama informed congressional leadership Saturday that 50 U.S. troops have been deployed to the African country of Chad to help evacuate U.S. citizens from a neighboring city where rebels appear to be advancing. The rebels have successfully seized 10 northern towns in the Central African Republic, leading Obama to declare the “deteriorating security” an emergency. The decision, of course, comes on the heels of criticism that “grossly” inadequate diplomatic security was to blame for the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya, which killed three.

Negotiations on how to avoid the now-infamous fiscal cliff continued late into the night Saturday, with aids passing proposals back and forth between Republican and Democratic offices. The negotiations come one day after a “productive” but largely fruitless meeting between President Obama and congressional leadership left him “modestly optimistic.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are now responsible for crafting a bipartisan agreement. The House and Senate will convene in “rare Sunday sessions” tomorrow—an indication of just how grave the situation has become.

President Barack Obama is urging the general assembly in his home state of Illinois to legalize gay marriage, ahead of a vote expected to take place in January. White House spokesman Shin Inouye told the Chicago Sun-Times that Obama does not often get involved with state legislatures, but that this is an issue he feels strongly about. “His personal view is that it’s wrong to prevent couples who are in loving, committed relationships, and want to marry, from doing so,” said Inouye. The legislation, formally the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, is led by state Sen. Heather Steans and state Rep. Greg Harris. It will likely be put up for a vote in January.

Some good news to ring in the new year. Former president George H.W. Bush is continuing to improve at Houston’s Methodist Hospital—and is even “singing” with staff, family spokesman Jim McGrath said on Saturday. The jovial Texas native is reportedly “alert” and happily conversing with medical staff. McGrath says Bush’s doctors are “cautiously optimistic” that the current treatment for his bronchitis will be effective. The 88-year-old, who has been hospitalized since Nov. 23, was moved to the intensive care unit Sunday when he developed a fever. Aides have remained confident throughout the ordeal that he will recover.

Irving Pinsky, an attorney in New Haven, Conn., has filed for permission to sue the state for $100 million on behalf of a 6-year-old girl who survived the shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary on Dec. 14. Pinsky blames the Board of Education, among other institutions, for failing to protect his client—identified only as “Jill Doe”—from “foreseeable harm,” leaving her with intense “emotional and psychological trauma.” He has filed the claim now in order to “freeze” the evidence to prevent insurance adjusters from shaping it. “Her friends were killed,” Pinsky said. “That’s pretty traumatic.”

Guess France has its own version of Grover Norquist. France's constitutional council ruled against a new tax rate for top earners on Saturday, citing "equality before public burdens.” The tax, which was a flagship policy of Socialist President François Hollande, introduced a top income tax rate of 75 percent for those earning over a million euros. But the policy angered the country's business community and its wealthiest citizens because it applied to individuals, not households: if one member of a household earned over the limit but another had no income, that household would fall under the tax, but if both members earned 900,000 euros individually, it would not. The council has also rejected all new methods for calculating such a tax.

New York City Police said Saturday that they had in custody the woman suspected of fatally pushing a man in front of a subway train. The 31-year-old woman has been identified as Erica Menendez of the Bronx. Menendez reportedly made statements incriminating herself while being questioned by police, and is being charged with murder as a hate crime, after telling police she wanted to hurt Muslims. Meanwhile, transit officials are reportedly considering installing sliding doors between tracks and the platforms of major subway stations, reported the MTA's executive director on Friday.

Guess this will brighten up Starbucks cups after the holiday-themed ones are gone. Starbucks has officially joined the president in asking lawmakers to compromise on the economy to avoid going over the fiscal cliff. After the company urged workers in its 120 Washington, D.C., stores to write “come together” on each customer’s cup, the effort gained so much steam over the week that a spokesman announced on Friday that Starbucks stores all over the country would be invited to join in. Although some have reported that it hasn’t been quite so successful ...

Mama Monster is taking teen counseling somewhere it’s never been: backstage. The singer revealed plans Saturday to offer free counseling at her BornBrave Bus before each show on her 2013 Born This Way Ball Tour. Gaga made the announcement through her Facebook page, telling her Little Monsters she hopes the free counseling will be a way to break stigmas around the idea of getting “help” and make it fun, instead. “At the BornBrave Bus you have access to professional private or group chats about mental health, depression, bullying, school & friends,” she told fans. The bus will also include food, games, and music. Leave it to a native New Yorker to prove therapy can be fun.

How do you learn about another culture? Maybe by looking at its Wikipedia searches. On Friday, a Swedish software engineer published a list of Wikipedia's most-searched articles of 2012, sorted by language. Facebook tops the English-language site's list of things we care about, with One Direction, 50 Shades of Grey, and The Avengers also showing up in our top 10. Over on the Spanish site, people learned about the Mayan culture, while in Iran, searchers seem curious about homosexuality, sex, and female genitals, which all showed up on the Persian site's top 10. Sex made another appearance on Japan's list, where the top search was for a porn actress. The most inexplicable international No. 1? German-language speakers really care about cul-de-sacs.

Horrific subway-pushing aside, New York City isn't as gritty as it used to be—and that's a good thing. Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised the New York Police Department on Friday for newly released homicide statistics, which show 414 murders in the city in the last year. The number represents both the city's lowest homicide rate in 40 years and a 19 percent decrease over 2011's rate of 515. As an added bonus, six precincts had reported no 2012 homicides at the time of the announcement. Although overall crimes did increase slightly, that was due to a rise in thefts of iPhones and other Apple devices—thefts of non-Apple products are also on the decline.

In the world of fiscal cliff debates, hope springs intermittently. The highly-anticipated meeting between President Obama and congressional leaders Friday afternoon ended disappointingly, with sources close to the talks claiming “no new offer” was made. Speaking to the press shortly after, a visibly-frustrated President Obama quipped that he had “deja vu,” after the lackluster discussion, but still remains “modestly optimistic” that a deal will be reached. “The hour for immediate action is here,” he said, adding that if the Senate cannot reach deal, he will ask for vote on his fiscal cliff plan. The president will also be appearing exclusively on Meet the Press this Sunday.

Do you treasure your prized Elvis autograph or signed picture of the Beatles? You might want to double check—memorabilia authenticators PSA/DNA announced on Thursday that over half of those artists' signatures for sale in 2012 were certified as genuine. Among others on the list are John F. Kennedy and Michael Jackson. Neil Armstrong jumped to No. 3 after his death in July, when the number of purported autographs by the late astronaut skyrocketed. But Armstrong was "very conscious" about giving away his signature—meaning that the signed moon rock you have is probably also fake. Sorry.

According to Facebook and Instagram, there’s a hazy filter on this report. The San Francisco company AppData reports that the photo-sharing platform has lost 25 percent of its daily active users in the past few weeks, following a backlash over changes to its privacy policy. Facebook, the platform’s owner, is disputing the accuracy of the report. AppData says the numbers do not reflect whether changes to the terms of service are to blame. Instagram’s co-founder Kevin Systrom attempted to clarify the new policy a week ago, reassuring users that their photos would not be used as ads. 

Here come the grooms! After years of fighting for the right to wed, same-sex couples in Maine finally got their chance just after midnight Saturday morning, when the city of Portland, the state's largest, began issuing marriage licenses. After waiting in line with more than a dozen other couples, Steven Bridges and Michael Snell became the state's first gay couple to legally wed, six years after their private commitment ceremony. The Maine legislature had approved same-sex marriage before, but three years ago it was overturned by referendum—an act that was itself overturned by another referendum last month.

A bomb exploded on a bus in Karachi, Pakistan, on Saturday, killing six and wounding 48, eight of whom were reportedly in critical condition. Officials disagree on the location of the bomb, with some saying it was planted on the bus and others claiming it was on a motorcycle and went off as the bus passed by. Pakistan's biggest city and its commercial capital, Karachi has been plagued by violence from attacks by militants and ethnic tensions over the last 10 years.

Marilyn just got even cooler. Newly obtained FBI files on Marilyn Monroe illustrate just how closely the bureau was tracking the blonde bombshell, and her “communist-aligned” acquaintances. Obtained by the Associated Press, her file—which begins in 1955—contains intimate details on Monroe’s life, including a trip to Mexico that introduced her to the leftist activist Frederick Vanderbilt Field. Letters and news clippings in the file suggest the bureau was also aware of conspiracy theories surrounding the actress’s death, and that the agency lacked proof she was in fact a communist.

Wow, President Obama must really want to talk the fiscal cliff. NBC announced Saturday that President Obama will appear on its heavy-hitting political talk show Meet the Press on Sunday. The president has not appeared on the show in three years. He will be interviewed by the show's moderator, David Gregory, who had been on vacation following an investigation by Washington, D.C., police. Even more nail-biting? The interview is set to air just hours before the fiscal-cliff deadline.

Las Vegas police on Friday identified the body of 10-year-old Jade Morris, who went missing on Dec. 21. A Las Vegas judge raised bail for Brenda Stokes, who is suspected in the stabbing death of her fiancé’s daughter, to $600,000 on Friday. She had been jailed for a week after allegedly walking up to blackjack dealer and reportedly slashing her in a face on Dec. 21, the last day that Jade was seen alive. But a day after the 10-year-old’s body was recovered on Thursday, prosecutors argued that Stokes would be a flight risk and may get out of jail prior to being charged with murder, leading to the tenfold increase.