A Somali police officer says a car bomb blew up at the entrance of a restaurant in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, killing two people. Mohamed Hussein said the blast Saturday occurred at the Blue Sky restaurant close to the presidential palace. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but the Islamic extremist group of Shabab often carries out such attacks. Shabab, Al Qaeda's East African affiliate, is fighting to impose a strict version of Islam in this Horn of Africa nation. Despite losing a lot of ground in recent years, the extremist group continues to carry out lethal attacks in many parts of the country, especially in the capital.

At Sundance earlier this year, the absurdist comedy "Swiss Army Man" rubbed so many critics and audience members the wrong way that it provoked mass walkouts and angry pans. But once the film moved from the festival circuit to the arthouse, it found an audience much more receptive to writer-directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan's gently twisted sense of humor. A combination of Robert Bresson and "Weekend at Bernie's," "Swiss Army Man" stars Paul Dano as a suicidal castaway who finds a flatulent corpse (played by Daniel Radcliffe) on the shore of a deserted island. He uses the dead man as a tool, a companion and an inspiration to survive. Filled with raunchy jokes and positive vibes, this is a movie that'll baffle some viewers, but it's such an original that it's hard not to admire.

There's a lot of pop culture to sort through week after week. Times staff writer Chris Barton offers his take on what's up and what's down in music, movies, television and just about anything else out there that is worth considering. The Westerlies: How does a four-piece trumpet and trombone instrumental combo earn raves from both indie-leaning music blogs and public radio while also performing at the Newport Jazz Festival and local rock clubs? The answer can be heard in the sprawling self-titled album due Oct. 7. Over two discs the New York City-based, Seattle-born brass band occupies a lively territory between jazz, Steven Foster-styled folk and chamber music with bracing melodies and, crucially, an undeniable sense of fun.

For all their brilliance, our phones still have as much emotional intelligence as glue. Yet, as electronics become ever more important in our lives, it may make sense to start teaching them to be more aware of our feelings. Early glimpses of such efforts were afoot at a gathering of artificial-intelligence software developers, academics and researchers this week in Manhattan, where several talks focused on finding ways to add emotion into our robots, voice assistants and chatbots. "People are building these very intimate relationships with these companions, but right now these companions have no empathy," Rana el Kaliouby, CEO of emotional-recognition tech firm Affectiva, said onstage Tuesday at the inaugural O'Reilly Artificial Intelligence Conference. Teaching robots about emotion illustrates both the promise and huge challenges involved in developing AI tools. Artificial intelligence, which lets machines mimic human learning and problem solving, is already used to improve Google searches and scan Facebook photos for faces.

Russia has warned the United States against carrying out any attacks on Syrian government forces, saying it would have repercussions across the Middle East. Russian news agencies quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying that a U.S. intervention against the Syrian army "will lead to terrible, tectonic consequences not only on the territory of this country but also in the region on the whole." She says regime change in Syria would create a vacuum that would be "quickly filled" by "terrorists of all stripes." U.S.-Russian tensions over Syria have escalated since the breakdown of a cease-fire last month, with each side blaming the other for its failure. Syrian government forces backed by Russian warplanes have launched a major onslaught on rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo.

Swiss researchers have completed a study documenting how alcoholic beverages function as a "social lubricant." Was formal research really needed to establish that alcohol "facilitates sexual disinhibition" leading to hook-ups? As if we baby boomers hadn't already made that connection decades ago. Perhaps the researchers weren't familiar with the wisdom (and wit) of mid-20th century poet Ogden Nash, who famously observed, "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker." To the editor: How can I get on the research gravy train as illustrated by this study whose "researchers concluded that alcohol's role as a social lubricant can be traced to its ability to facilitate'sexual disinhibition?' " Revelation!

With Congress opening the way for Sept. 11 families to sue Saudi Arabia, victims' families are focusing on an unproven theory that a Saudi consular official in Los Angeles and a Saudi intelligence operative in San Diego directly assisted two of the 19 hijackers. The alleged Southern California connection is the key to showing that Saudi Arabia financed Muslim extremists who played a direct role in supporting some of the hijackers, according to lawyers for the families of those killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks. The families contend that lower-level Saudi operatives in Southern California helped find housing for the two hijackers, both Saudi citizens, months before they muscled their way into the cockpit of an American Airlines passenger jet that smashed into the north side of the Pentagon. If a pending lawsuit is allowed to proceed, the families hope to find the evidence in thousands of classified FBI, CIA and Treasury Department documents that could be made public as part of discovery in federal court. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied any direct or indirect support for Al Qaeda, the terrorist group that carried out the attacks, or any foreknowledge or involvement in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

California regulators have changed course and opened a pathway for the public to get self-driving cars of the future that lack a steering wheel or pedals. It's not going to happen soon, because automakers and some tech companies are still testing prototypes. But, in a shift, the state's Department of Motor Vehicles said in a revision of draft regulations released late Friday that the most advanced self-driving cars would no longer be required to have a licensed driver if federal officials deem them safe enough. Authorities on Friday released cellphone and surveillance video showing the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man, hoping to quell growing questions about the incident that has led to violent protests. The video provides more context about the moments before the fatal encounter on Tuesday,... Authorities on Friday released cellphone and surveillance video showing the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man, hoping to quell growing questions about the incident that has led to violent protests.

The University of Pennsylvania, the largest private employer in Philadelphia, is a world-renowned leader in education, research, and innovation. This historic, Ivy League school consistently ranks among the top 10 universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey. Penn has 12 highly-regarded schools that provide opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and continuing education, all influenced by Penn's distinctive interdisciplinary approach to scholarship and learning. Penn offers a unique working environment within the city of Philadelphia. The University is situated on a beautiful urban campus, with easy access to a range of educational, cultural, and recreational activities.

At Experian DataLabs in San Diego, a team of scientists is thwarting bad guys with math. A top-five U.S. credit card issuer recently dumped about 6 billion transaction records on Experian DataLabs to see if its machine-learning mathematical formulas could do a better job of rooting out credit card fraud than the bank's existing system. Experian scientists used neuro-embedding/natural language processing techniques to understand the "syntax" of the credit card data, computer scientist Honghao Shan said. "We thought we had figured it out and went back to them," said Eric Haller, head of Experian DataLabs. "They said, 'How did you do that?' … It turns out we reduced their false positives by half."