SEOUL (Reuters) – French-trained chefs are cooking up a storm in Pyongyang where North Korea’s privileged classes are devouring their baguettes, a pro-North newspaper reported on Wednesday, even as much of the population outside the capital struggles to feed i... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Park Service is weighing using dogs to drive off Canada geese that each foul the U.S. capital’s National Mall with up to three pounds (1.4 kg) of droppings a day, the agency said on Tuesday. The Park Service is considering using... More »
NAGORO, Japan (Reuters) – Tsukimi Ayano made her first scarecrow 13 years ago to frighten off birds pecking at seeds in her garden. The life-sized straw doll resembled her father, so she made more. And then couldn’t stop. Today, the tiny village of Nagoro in s... More »
OSLO (Reuters) – The Norwegian Arctic islands of Svalbard are discouraging last-minute visitors for a rare solar eclipse next week, warning that hotels are full, it will be freezing cold and polar bears are on the prowl. Christin Kristoffersen, mayor of Svalba... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – From charging slaughterhouse workers for their knives to compensating staff with tanning salon vouchers, German employers are coming up with creative ways to avoid paying a new minimum wage, angering unions. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s govern... More »
ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – Golfers at a course in Florida on Wednesday were careful to putt around a large alligator, days after the beast was photographed lounging on the edge of the green in an image that went viral on Facebook. A women’s tournament went on a... More »
TIRANA (Reuters) – Of 14 sorties flown by British World War Two pilots supplying anti-fascist fighters in Albania on Oct. 29, 1944, 12 returned to base in Italy, one failed to discharge its load and “the other is missing and assumed to have crashed”, according... More »
CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – An endangered 500-pound (230-kg) leatherback sea turtle was being treated at a South Carolina aquarium on Monday after wildlife officials made a rare rescue of the reptile found alive and stranded on a remote beach. It is the first... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The world’s biggest dog show was thrust into a murder mystery fit for an Agatha Christie novel when a champion Irish setter died after its owner said it had been fed steak laced with poison. The death of three-year-old Jagger rocked Britain’... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – A pensioner has started digging in Germany’s western Ruhr region for the Amber Room, a priceless work of art looted by Nazis from the Soviet Union during World War Two and missing for 70 years, but says he needs a new drill to help him. Dubb... More »
AOSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) – An army of feral cats rules a remote island in southern Japan, curling up in abandoned houses or strutting about in a fishing village that is overrun with felines outnumbering humans six to one. Originally introduced to the mile-long... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The $150,000 Oscar gown worn by actress Lupita Nyong’o that was stolen two days ago was returned on Friday by the thief, who tipped off celebrity news site TMZ.com after learning the pearls on the dress were fake, according to officials... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – The Brazilian judge presiding over criminal proceedings against charismatic entrepreneur Eike Batista, once Brazil’s richest man, was seen on Tuesday driving a Porsche belonging to the fallen tycoon that had been seized by the court.... More »
ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – About 20 Florida manatees were freed by early Tuesday morning from a storm drain near Cape Canaveral, where they were apparently trying to warm themselves, officials and local media said. Video footage showed a rescuer comforting one ... More »
MILAN (Reuters) – Italy prop Martin Castrogiovanni is set to miss Saturday’s Six Nations match against Scotland at Murrayfield after being bitten on the nose by a friend’s dog, the Ansa news agency reported on Monday. The Italian rugby federation said Castrogi... More »
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian legislator Pat Martin on Thursday offered up one of the most original excuses ever heard for hurriedly running out of the House of Commons during a vote, his new cheap pair of underpants was too tight. Martin, who belongs to the off... More »
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong leader C.Y. Leung, nicknamed the “wolf” by critics, said residents of the Chinese-controlled city should be more like sheep after a year “rife with differences”, including months of sometimes violent pro-democracy street protest... More »
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong leader C.Y. Leung said on Wednesday residents of the Chinese-controlled city should be more like sheep after a year he said was “rife with differences”, including months of sometimes violent pro-democracy street protests. Leung ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A bouncy 15-inch beagle named Miss P won the top honor at the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on Tuesday, besting more than 2,700 competitors. Miss P, from Vancouver, British Columbia, was awarded the Best in Show prize at the... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The crowning of the grand champion of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on Tuesday brought together the world’s top dogs, from shaggy to sleek and from famous to infamous, namely a finalist owned by heiress Patty Hearst. The 139th Westm... More »
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (Reuters) – It may not have been a hacking, but a computer outage at the hotel where U.S. President Barack Obama resided this week could not have come at a more inconvenient time. The president flew to San Francisco on Thursday to preach ... More »
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said he was appalled that some of his fans had built a temple to deify him, adding that such an act contradicted tradition. Hundreds of his followers in the western city of Rajkot donated f... More »
TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) – The Florida cat that crawled out of its grave after a traffic accident is now ensnared in a legal dispute over custody involving its owner and the Humane Society of Tampa Bay. Bart the cat, nicknamed “zombie cat” on social media, made i... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A treasure trove of objects that were supposed to have been left behind after the first moon landing have turned up in the closet of Neil Armstrong, the first man to step onto the lunar surface, the Smithsonian Institution has said. Arms... More »
BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s Marxist FARC rebels have invited the newly-crowned Miss Universe Paulina Vega, a native of the country’s Caribbean coast, to attend their peace negotiations with the government, a bid to end 50 years of fighting. The 22-year-old V... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Jeremy Meeks, the California man whose mugshot became a sensation among Web users admiring his male-model good looks, has been sentenced to more than two years in prison on a gun charge, federal prosecutors said on Friday. Meeks, 30, wa... More »
ZURICH (Reuters) – A jump in the Swiss franc against the euro, which threatens to push the country’s economy into recession, is boosting trade in brothels across the border in Germany. Those who earn wages in francs have been streaming into neighboring countri... More »
GORNJA MAOCA, Bosnia (Reuters) – Flags and emblems of Islamic State, pictured on Wednesday on houses in a Bosnian village, disappeared on Thursday under threat of action by police wary of the dangers posed by radical Islamists returning from Syria and Iraq. Th... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgium’s royal family has apologized to members of the public who were sent official cards that wrongly appeared to announce the death of King Philippe’s mother. The palace said 150 people who sent letters of condolence on the death in De... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgium’s royal family has apologized to members of the public who were sent official cards that wrongly appeared to announce the death of King Philippe’s mother. The palace said 150 people who sent letters of condolence on the death in De... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Greece’s casually-attired finance minister can dress as he pleases when he visits Berlin this week, German officials said on Wednesday, provided he offers a sharp account of his government’s plans. Yanis Varoufakis has attracted as much atte... More »
ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – After a 20-year ban, Florida may bring back bear hunts to control a growing population of black bears that is increasingly seen as a menace in suburban neighborhoods. Four people have been injured in bear attacks in Florida since 2012... More »
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A professional competitive eater from Chicago downed 444 chicken wings in 30 minutes at the 23rd annual Wing Bowl in Philadelphia, narrowly edging out his nearest rival and shattering the record of 363 wings set a year earlier. “I have... More »
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German luxury carmaker BMW has fixed a security flaw that could have allowed hackers to unlock the doors of up to 2.2 million Rolls-Royce, Mini and BMW vehicles, it said on Friday. BMW said officials at German motorist association ADAC ha... More »
BOSTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was slapped with a $50 fine for failing to have a side street adjoining his Boston home shoveled following the blizzard that dropped more than 2 feet (60 cm) of snow on Massachusetts this week, a spokesman ... More »
TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) – A cat in Florida is on the mend after clawing his way back from the dead, surfacing five days after he was hit by a car and buried for dead, according to the Humane Society of Tampa Bay. Bart the cat is recovering from a broken jaw and ... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – An inquiry was under way on Wednesday after French trade unionists turned the lights off on a keynote speech by Prime Minister Manuel Valls in protest at planned energy reforms. Valls was starting a speech to about 700 people in support of hi... More »
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – New Orleans’ oldest cemetery will soon be closed to visitors without an official escort or familial ties to the deceased, the result of a spate of vandalism that has included the tomb of voodoo queen Marie Laveau. Vandalism is not a new... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Three bandits wearing ski masks crashed a stolen SUV into the Wells Fargo History Museum in San Francisco early on Tuesday and held a security guard at gunpoint before making off with a display of gold nuggets from the 19th century, p... More »
BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Israeli beauty queen’s selfie has caused a stir in Lebanon, with some Lebanese saying their country’s contestant at the Miss Universe pageant should be stripped of her title for consorting with the enemy. Miss Israel Doron Matalon posted a... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An 8-foot alligator was found next to the carcasses of two cats in the back yard of a suburban Los Angeles home where the reptile had been living illegally since the 1970s, authorities said on Thursday. Animal control officers armed wit... More »
DENVER (Reuters) – Police in Colorado are hunting a hooded man who was about to rob a convenience store but stopped after recognizing the clerk and then gave the startled employee a cheery thumbs-up. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said the conscience-st... More »
CARACAS (Reuters) – Governors in three Venezuelan states have banned overnight queuing amid huge and sometimes rowdy lines around shops across the scarcity-plagued country. Shortages of basic consumer products from milk to toilet paper have worsened since a lu... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A Beverly Hills rare coin dealer purchased a 1792 American penny for nearly $2.6 million, the most ever paid for a one-cent piece at auction. Named after its engraver, Robert Birch, the so-called “Birch Cent” was among the first pennies... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Female models in tight dresses and miniskirts may be banned from one of Asia’s premier car exhibitions in Shanghai this year. The Chinese government is concerned about what it sees as increasing vulgarity in society. A crackdown on pornogr... More »
HARARE (Reuters) – Nobody wanted the Zimbabwe dollar, so the southern African country dumped it for the U.S. dollar in 2009 to stave off economic collapse and sky-rocketing hyperinflation. Now nobody wants the “bond coins” it put in circulation last month to r... More »
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – A painting by Louisiana artist George Rodrigue that depicts him as a blue dog beside his bride on their wedding day was recovered undamaged hours after it was stolen from a New Orleans gallery, a gallery spokesman said on Wednesday. The... More »
BOSTON (Reuters) – A 220-year-old time capsule containing coins, documents and other artifacts left by U.S. founding fathers Samuel Adams and Paul Revere was opened by Massachusetts officials on Tuesday. “The history of Massachusetts is the history of America,... More »
CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan fast-food lovers are mourning the disappearance of McDonald’s golden staple: the french fry. A recent shortage at the U.S. fast food chain comes as socialist Venezuela grapples with shortfalls of basic goods ranging from medicine... More »
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentine President Cristina Fernandez chose an unexpected theme for her year-end message to the country: a change in policy at the state-run airline to allow passengers to carry their already notoriously-pampered lapdogs with them on ... More »
HAVANA (Reuters) – The United States helped a Cuban spy imprisoned in California artificially inseminate his wife back in Cuba, a goodwill gesture while Washington and Havana were engaged in secret talks on restoring diplomatic ties, U.S. officials said on Mon... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Anti-austerity protesters got close enough to Belgium’s prime minister on Monday to splatter him with a helping of the national dish – fries and mayo. Pictures from the business event in Namur showed Charles Michel, 39, smiling as a woman ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – It was the year of the family pet behaving badly: A dog got sick from eating dozens of socks and a puppy took the rap for driving the family car into a pond. Angry cats held their owners hostage on at least two occasions. A review of the o... More »
(Reuters) – Police in Alabama arrested a man after finding 14 grams of heroin hidden in his 2-year-old daughter’s diaper, a discovery aided by a tip from the girl’s 5-year-old sister, authorities said on Tuesday. Narcotics detectives in the Birmingham suburb o... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A humanoid robot with a head, hands and feet and wearing stylish red sneakers boarded a flight for Germany at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday, becoming what was billed as the first robot traveling as a paid passenger on an a... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Waves of revelers dressed in Santa Claus outfits invaded Midtown Manhattan on Saturday as part of New York’s version of SantaCon, a massive pub crawl that organizers scaled back this year in part to prevent conflicts with a nearby protest ... More »
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) – A Nashville-area haunted house is getting into the Christmas spirit this weekend, with Zombie Santa, his undead elves and one demonic reindeer going on the attack for fun and charity. “Instead of Christmas cheer, we are spreading s... More »
PADUA, Italy (Reuters) – White-coated bakers are chopping nuts, dipping pastry into liquid chocolate and hanging freshly baked panettone Christmas cake upside down to preserve its domed shape. But when one of the all-male team steps outside to smoke, he is in ... More »
DALLAS (Reuters) – Holy Bargain, Batman! The original Batmobile fetched $137,000 at auction on Saturday, a small fraction of the $4.2 million that a buyer paid last year for another version built for the television show that aired during the 1960s. It was the ... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – There are few things people agree on in linguistically divided Belgium, but an effort to get Belgian potato fries recognized as global cultural heritage and put it on a par with Peking opera and the Argentinian tango may get unequivocal su... More »
ALBANY, N.Y. (Reuters) – In the first case of its kind, a New York appeals court rejected on Thursday an animal rights advocate’s bid to extend “legal personhood” to chimpanzees, saying the primates are incapable of bearing the responsibilities that come with ... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s first initial public offering in a medicinal marijuana company is three times oversubscribed, giving high hopes to its founder’s ambitions to become “the George Clooney of medicinal cannabis”. Perth-based Phytotech, due to list o... More »
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has ordered people who share the name of leader Kim Jong Un to change their names, South Korea’s state-run KBS television reported on Wednesday. North Korea imposed similar bans on the use of the names of its two former leaders, K... More »
SCHOONORD, Guyana (Reuters) – As the sun rises over the Demerara River, a half dozen men gather on its west bank, tightly gripping small wooden cages. Complementing the scenic beauty of the nearby palms and sugar cane fields, male finches chirp melodiously fro... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – French farmers, who regularly bring livestock into Paris to punctuate their protests, drove some 250 sheep into the shadow of the Eiffel Tower on Thursday to highlight an unusual concern – that a growing wolf population is killing their flock... More »
(Reuters) – A previously unknown female Chihuahua named Frida has won her first political office, being named Mayor of San Francisco for the day as part of a campaign to support the city’s animal shelter. Frida, whose owner bid $5,000 for the privilege, will s... More »
CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela praised its ‘socialist revolution’ for a culinary conquest on Saturday: Guinness World Records for the country’s beloved Christmas dinner staples. A cook-a-thon in capital Caracas landed Venezuela records for the biggest ham-fille... More »
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia plans to create its own “Wikipedia” to ensure its citizens have access to more “detailed and reliable” information about their country, the presidential library said on Friday. Citing Western threats, the Kremlin has asserted more con... More »
DENVER (Reuters) – A high school in Colorado, one of the first two U.S. states to legalize recreational marijuana use, was put on partial lockdown on Friday after a student’s weed pipe filled a classroom with pot smoke, the school said. The smoke from the devi... More »
SEATTLE (Reuters) – An incumbent Democratic state representative in Washington was headed for a decisive re-election victory on Wednesday even though he died last week, results indicate. Roger Freeman, a first-term representative from Federal Way, a city betwe... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called off the purchase of a slew of website domain names that insult and belittle him and his work, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday. The move came a day after reports that two law firms working for Bl... More »
(Reuters) – At least two Northern California radio stations have pledged not to play New Zealand artist Lorde’s song “Royals,” in solidarity with the San Francisco Giants during their World Series matchup with the Kansas City Royals. The decision by San Franci... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A California woman who tried to sneak into a house through the chimney got stuck and had to be rescued by firefighters, who used dish soap to help extricate the soot-covered intruder, authorities said on Monday. Local media reports say ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Yogurt became New York’s official state snack on Wednesday, joining the likes of popcorn and salty boiled peanuts among popular foods honored by U.S. states. New York has become the nation’s top yogurt producer amid the booming popularity ... More »
NEWRY Maine (Reuters) – Men with their wives slung over their shoulders bounded over log hurdles and charged through a muddy pit on a mountainside in Maine on Saturday, as hundreds of spectators cheered them on at the North American Wife Carrying Championship.... More »
SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – A 90-year-old woman whose California chinchilla farm was purchased and shut down by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals with money from a Hollywood mogul has sued the group, claiming they falsely portrayed her as an abuser of anim... More »
(Reuters) – A Honolulu City Council proposal to name a popular Oahu beach after the first Hawaii-born U.S. president, Barack Obama, has been withdrawn after the plan met with little enthusiasm from the public, its sponsors said on Tuesday. Council Chair Ernest... More »
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – First there was bendgate… now brace yourself for hairgate. Fresh from the online uproar over whether the shiny new iPhone 6 bends when carried around in pockets, Apple has been hit by a new complaint – that the handset traps users’ hair o... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – French far-right leader Marine Le Pen said on Wednesday police had confiscated her driving license for a string of road offences – but insisted they had been committed by someone else. The National Front party leader, who recently called spee... More »
(Reuters) – Intruders beat to death more than 900 chickens, some of them with a golf club, during a break-in at a commercial poultry farm in central California, authorities said. The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office said the suspects pulled back part of the fenc... More »
LIMA (Reuters) – A Spanish speleologist trapped 400 meters (1,312 feet) underground in a cave in the Peruvian Amazon for nearly two weeks was pulled to safety on Tuesday, a rescue worker said. Cecilio Lopez-Tercero was stuck in the cave, named Intimachay, for ... More »
GLENEAGLES Scotland (Reuters) – Such was the meticulous attention to every detail during Paul McGinley’s victorious campaign as European Ryder Cup captain, the Irishman even made careful plans for the fish tank in the team room. “Everything in the room was pla... More »
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Looking to put a patriotic spin on international sanctions over Ukraine, a local group is touring Moscow, urging passers-by to swap their Western-branded T-shirts for homegrown tops sporting pro-Russian slogans. “Sanctions? Don’t make my Isk... More »
MANCHESTER England (Reuters) – Britain’s monarch is famously above politics, but Prime Minister David Cameron was overheard on Tuesday saying Queen Elizabeth had “purred” with happiness when he phoned her to inform her Scotland had voted to reject independence... More »
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thai Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha admitted on Tuesday he had sought advice from fortune-tellers following media speculation over his spiritual beliefs. Prayuth led a May coup that toppled a democratically elected government afte... More »
BOSTON (Reuters) – Researchers who measured the slipperiness of banana peels, the ability of pork strips to stop nosebleeds, and the reactions of reindeer to humans in polar bear suits were among the winners of this year’s Ig Nobel prizes for comical scientifi... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – San Francisco drag queens and a city lawmaker met with Facebook on Wednesday demanding the site change its policy banning users from using aliases online, but said they were rebuffed. Facebook, the world’s largest social media network... More »
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, was presented with an unlikely gift for a religious leader this week as he toured a factory in Russia’s far-east – a single-seater fighter jet SU-35. Kirill was presented with the je... More »
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – A couple have named their new-born son Messi after Argentina’s soccer captain, having been granted permission to circumvent a 45-year-old law banning the use of last names as first names. Barcelona striker Lionel Messi may be one of th... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Jianxing An can see he is in a dying business. The gravestone designer, who takes pride in works featuring musical instruments and heavenly gates, says years of shrinking sales are driving him to close up shop in Japan and move back to his na... More »
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – Lawyers for Rick Perry invoked a former Roman emperor and 17th-century French King Louis XIV in a motion filed on Monday seeking to dismiss abuse-of-power felony charges leveled against the Texas governor. It was the second motion seeki... More »
BANGKOK (Reuters) – As he prepares to move in to Bangkok’s Government House this week, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha is going to great lengths to sweep away any occult challenge. Prayuth, 60, has left nothing to chance since leading a military coup to ... More »
OSLO (Reuters) – Norway plans to rent prison space in the Netherlands as the queue of convicts awaiting cells is growing and renovation work at Norwegian jails is expected to cut capacity, the justice ministry said on Monday. “At the moment, the queue is at 1,... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The word big does not do justice to a massive, long-necked dinosaur that shook the Earth in Argentina about 77 million years ago. Try colossal, enormous, gargantuan and stupendous – and you might come close to an accurate description of ... More »
MIAMI (Reuters) – Wildlife authorities in Florida caught a man who killed and ate 15 gopher tortoises and planned to slaughter 11 more of the threatened reptiles, a spokeswoman said on Thursday. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said a tip-... More »
