Model show creations by David & Alexander during Moscow Fashion Week in Moscow, Russai, Thursday. You write the cutline. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Top Cutlines:

• 1. Ever since that Egyptian Cobra bit me on the head at the Bronx Zoo everyone looks at me funny — CoeurGenX.
• 2. I’m NOT an alien. I’ll ram My ovopositor down your throat and lay eggs in your chest but, I’m not an alien — Sisyphus.
• 3. Can I give anyone a bony prominence head massage? — Stebbijo.
• HM: Detroit Dude

President Barack Obama, joined by Vice President Joe Biden at left, speaks Friday before signing the bipartisan tax package.

WASHINGTON — The Senate today ratified an arms control treaty with Russia that reins in the nuclear weapons that could plunge the world into doomsday, giving President Barack Obama a major foreign policy win in Congress’ waning hours.

Thirteen Republicans broke with their top two leaders and joined 56 Democrats and two independents in providing the necessary two-thirds vote to approve the treaty. The vote was 71-26.

The accord, which still must be approved by Russia, would restart onsite weapons inspections as successors to President Ronald Reagan embraced his edict of “trust, but verify.”

Vice President Joe Biden presided over the Senate and announced the vote. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton observed the vote from the Senate floor. Both had lobbied furiously for the treaty’s approval.

MOSCOW – The winner of the Karaoke World Championships may not achieve world fame, but at least he or she won’t have to worry where the next meal is coming from – the top prize is 1 million Russian dumplings.

With an unusual purse like that, it’s clear that karaokists retain a sense of humor about a pursuit as derided as it is popular. But they’re also serious enough about it to have traveled from as far away as Australia and Nigeria for a three-day battle-of-the-no-bands in a Moscow banquet hall.

The first night of the competition Thursday seems to show that karaoke is at a tipping point. It’s gone far beyond caterwauling in front of a group of sozzled buddies and regretting it the next morning; most of those on stage here have serious pipes and carefully worked-out moves. Yet it retains the casual camaraderie of a barroom at midnight. Read More. Jim Heinz, AP

Karaoki is still on my bucket list. Do you karaoki? Where?

This image provided by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Tuesday Dec. 15, 2009 shows hundreds of brilliant blue stars wreathed by warm, glowing clouds.

MOSCOW – Russia’s space agency chief said Wednesday a spacecraft may be dispatched to knock a large asteroid off course and reduce the chances of Earth impact, even though U.S. scientists say such a scenario is unlikely.

Anatoly Perminov told Golos Rossii radio the space agency would hold a meeting soon to assess a mission to Apophis. He said his agency might eventually invite NASA, the European Space Agency, the Chinese space agency and others to join the project.

When the 885-foot asteroid was first discovered in 2004, astronomers estimated its chances of smashing into Earth in its first flyby, in 2029, at 1-in-37.

Should the Russians intervene?