It's been a banner year for New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The museum on Thursday announced its highest attendance in 40 years, saying over 5.6 million people visited during the fiscal year that ended June 30.

Oil prices rose toward $100 a barrel Friday in Asia after European leaders reached an aid deal aimed at stanching Greece's financial crisis.

Benchmark oil for September delivery was up 53 cents to $99.66 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude rose 73 cents to settle at $99.13 on Thursday.

Scientists have found a new contributor to male infertility, a protein that is supposed to coat sperm to help them swim to an egg, unless that coating goes missing.

About 20 percent of men may harbor gene mutations that leave their sperm coat-free and thus lower their fertility, an international research team reported.

The space shuttle passed into history Thursday, the words "wheels stop" crackling over the cockpit radio for the very last time.

In an almost anticlimactic end to the 30-year-old program, Atlantis and its four astronauts glided to a ghostly landing in near-darkness after one last visit to the International Space Station, completing the 135th and final shuttle flight.

Nearly two decades after their heyday, Beavis and Butthead are coming back.

Creator Mike Judge says the ever adolescent, trash-talking duo will return to MTV in the fall.

A judge warned Lindsay Lohan Thursday that she must spend more time doing community service and enroll in psychological counseling or risk running into problems with her probation.

In a separate development, Lohan was sued for assault and battery in Riverside County by a former worker at the Betty Ford Center who had a dispute with the actress in December.

Newspapers themselves have been making headlines lately, with the British tabloid News of the World collapsing amid allegations of phone hacking and police bribery and News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch testifying before Parliament — and being attacked by a protestor with a shaving-cream pie in the process.

But the Fourth Estate has long been an inspiration for filmmakers who've depicted reporters as both seekers of truth and unscrupulous diggers of scoops.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is using Twitter as a tool to govern remotely while he undergoes cancer treatment in Cuba.

In more than 40 messages this week on his "chavezcandanga" account, he has approved money for a Caracas trash collection project, praised plans for a new park and cheered on the national soccer team.

In a country where cricket is so ingrained in the social fabric that it dwarfs every other sport and most other topics of conversation, Aayushman Chaturvedi made a decision that was almost unthinkable for his parents.

He chose football.

Attitudes toward Muslims have become slightly more positive in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Russia compared with five years ago, although negative views between Muslim countries and the West persist on both sides, a Pew Center survey found.

The survey, by Pew's Global Attitudes Project, found majorities of Muslims surveyed in five of six Muslim-dominant countries and the Palestinian territories described non-Muslim Westerners as selfish and greedy.