WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plans to run for a seat in the Australian Senate in elections due late next year despite being under virtual house arrest in England and facing criminal charges in Sweden, the group said Saturday.

The 40-year-old Australian citizen is fighting extradition to Sweden, where he's wanted over sex crime allegations. Assange has taken his legal battle all the way to Britain's Supreme Court, which is expected to rule on his case imminently.

East Timor started voting for a new president Saturday, putting to test the young nation's political stability ahead of the departure of U.N. troops later this year.

The election is expected to be a three-way race between incumbent Jose Ramos Horta, former military chief Taur Matan Ruak and former parliamentary speaker Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guetteres.

President Hugo Chavez returned home to Venezuela looking haggard but expressing optimism he will survive after undergoing cancer surgery in Cuba.

Chavez said he has been praying and is confident he will triumph in his re-election bid this year. He smiled and waved as he stepped off the plane Friday night, but his expression turned sober as he referred to his unfinished struggle with cancer.

The Miss Alaska pageant requires contestants to perform a public service project. Under Debbe Ebben's silver tiara is evidence of hers.

"Fearless Felix" Baumgartner has jumped 2,500 times from planes and helicopters, as well as some of the highest landmarks and skyscrapers on the planet — the Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro, the Millau Viaduct in southern France, the 101-story Taipei 101 in Taiwan.

He's also leapt face-first into a pitch-dark, 620-foot-deep cave in Croatia — his most dangerous feat yet, he says, but soon to be outdone.

Germany's top federal appeals court ruled Friday that a Berlin museum must return to a Jewish man from the U.S. thousands of rare posters that were seized from his father by the Gestapo, saying that for the institution to keep them would be perpetuating the crimes of the Nazis.

The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe said Peter Sachs, 74, was the rightful owner of the posters, now believed to be worth between €4.5 million and €16 million ($6 million and $21 million), and can demand their return from the German Historical Museum.

Lil Wayne was feeling inspirational while making an appearance at South By Southwest. Snoop Dogg admitted he was too high to notice he was performing on a stage five stories tall that looked like a vending machine. And rumors that Eminem will make a surprise appearance continued to swirl around 6th Street.

Hip-hop stars completed a near takeover of the music conference and festival in Austin, Texas, overnight Thursday and Friday with Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, B.o.B., T.I. and Wale all playing bass-booming showcases just blocks from each other into Friday morning.

The comedian Gallagher is hospitalized in stable condition after suffering a heart attack at a North Dallas bar before going on stage for a show.

Gallagher's promotional manager, Christine Scherrer, says the 65-year-old is sedated and "slowly recovering" after collapsing Wednesday night.

Earth's lost frontier is about to be explored firsthand after more than half a century. It's a mission to the deepest part of the ocean, so deep that the pressure is the equivalent of three SUVs sitting on your toe.

And it is being launched by the rich and famous.

The number of Monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico dropped 28 percent this year, according to a report released Thursday, a decline some experts attribute to droughts in parts of the United States and Canada where the butterflies breed and begin their long migration south.

Others say damage to wintering grounds in central Mexico's mountains remains a factor in the decline, citing deforestation of the fir and pine forests they favor.