GAZA CITY ? International efforts to end the devastating three-week-old Gaza war intensified Monday with the U.N. Security Council calling for an ?immediate and unconditional humanitarian cease-fire? in the conflict that has already claimed the lives of more than 1,035 Palestinians and 43 Israeli soldiers.

GAZA CITY ? The conflict in Gaza raged on Sunday, even as both Israel and Hamas offered brief truces and President Obama pressed Israel for an ?immediate, unconditional humanitarian ceasefire,? reflecting growing concern over the rising death toll.

A man in his 20s was killed after lightning struck 13 people Sunday at Venice Beach in Southern California, according to news reports.

Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Katherine Main told The Washington Post that during a thunderstorm witnesses heard a loud thunder clap and saw lightning strike Venice Beach.

NEW YORK ? When it comes to preventing the spread of germs, maybe the president is on to something with his fondness for fist bumps.

The familiar knocking of knuckles spreads only one-20th the amount of bacteria that a handshake does, researchers report. That?s better than a high-five, which still passes along less than half the amount as a handshake.

KIEV, Ukraine ? Rebels and government troops fired on each other?s positions Sunday in a strategically important city in eastern Ukraine, sending residents into bomb shelters, as Washington released images that it said prove Russia is shooting across the border into Ukraine to support separatists.

State Police in Maine say a mother, father, and three children were found dead Sunday in their home near Portland, Maine. The family has not been identified by police.

According to the Boston Herald, State Police said ?all indications are that no one outside of the family was responsible for the deaths.? They said a gun was found on scene.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange penned an open letter to British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who portrays Assange in an upcoming film, praising the actor's talents but slamming his involvement with the film and turning down the actor's invitation to meet in person. Assange, who is currently holed up at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, wrote a letter to Cumberbatch dated January 15, 2013, that was published on Wednesday on the anti-secrecy website ahead of the October 18 theatrical release of Walt Disney Co's DreamWorks film "The Fifth Estate. ...

By Eric Kelsey BEVERLY HILLS, California (Reuters) - Barkhad Abdi, a tall wisp of a man with a narrow face and a wide grin, sat on the sofa in his hotel suite with one eye on the television and another on a view of the Hollywood Hills. The 28-year-old Somali-American, who had worked the past year at his brother's mobile phone store in Minneapolis, could hardly have called himself an actor when he began production in British director Paul Greengrass' thriller "Captain Phillips. ...

By Tom Heneghan PARIS (Reuters) - The French theatre, opera and film director Patrice Chereau, who mounted one of the most famous productions of Richard Wagner's "Ring" cycle in Bayreuth in the 1970s, has died at the age of 68. Chereau, who was preparing a production of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" when he succumbed to lung cancer, was a restless innovator who began directing at high school in Paris and never looked back. ...

(Reuters) - American actress Scarlett Johansson has been named the sexiest woman alive for the second time by Esquire, the men's lifestyle magazine said on Monday. "The Avengers" star was named sexiest woman in 2006 and is the only woman to have been given the title twice by the publication. The annual recipient of the title is chosen by Esquire editors. Husky-voiced Johansson, who rose to prominence as a teenager in the 2001 cult film "Ghost World," stars in three films this fall. ...

NBCNews.com's political cartoonists take a look back at the past week.

This blog is not dead.

Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: If you can't make it to the South Pacific's eclipse zone to watch the sun turn into a "ring of fire" on Thursday, you can still see the spectacle online.

From ?The Daddle? to ?The Freedom Flask?, Willie Geist offers some really bad ideas for dad this year.