A Chinese beekeeper covered his semi-naked body in more than 460,000 bees for a publicity stunt aimed at selling more of his honey, he told Agence France Presse Thursday, using a technique known as "bee bearding".

She Ping, a 34-year-old honey merchant from the southwestern Chinese metropolis of Chongqing, covered himself in bees that collectively weighed more than 45 kilograms (100 pounds) in a display for a group of French photographers on Wednesday, he said.

The Catholic weekly Credere (Believe) has been caught in a delayed April Fools' prank about the Vatican recruiting a hawk to protect the pope's doves after two were killed by a crow and a seagull.

The publication said a bird of prey named "Sylvia", who was specially trained for the task in northern Italy, has been taken on by the Swiss Guards following the incident in January.

Beijing artist Liang Kegang returned from a business trip in southern France with well-rested lungs and a small item of protest against his home city's choking pollution: a glass jar of clean, Provence air.

He put it up for auction before a group of about 100 Chinese artists and collectors late last month, and it fetched 5,250 yuan ($860).

This is one crocodile that didn't want to become a handbag.

Police in the Sacramento suburb of Roseville captured a 4-foot-long crocodile Wednesday near a T.J. Maxx store in a strip mall.

A pair of mangoes grown in southern Japan sold Thursday for a whopping 300,000 yen ($3,000), a record price for the fruit's first auction of the season, Kyodo News reported.

The "Taiyo no Tamago" (Egg of usthe Sun)-brand mangoes were set to be airlifted from Miyazaki in the far south of the country to a department store in Fukuoka, where they were to go on sale, the agency said.

Two Minnesota burglary suspects are arrested after police say one of them accidentally called 911 and left the line open as the pair discussed the crime.

Maplewood Police Chief Paul Schnell says the dispatcher got a call and hang-up, then another call that stayed open.

An 85-year-old nursing home patient was the victim of "disgraceful sexual perversion" when a male stripper gyrated in front of her against her will at the suburban New York facility, an attorney for the woman's family said Tuesday.

John Ray, the attorney for Bernice Youngblood and her family, displayed a picture of a man in white briefs dancing in front of the woman at East Neck Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in September 2012.

The aroma of one of South Korea's most popular delicacies is regularly compared to rotting garbage and filthy bathrooms. And that's by fans.

The unusual dish is typically made by taking dozens of fresh skate, a cartilage-rich fish that looks like a stingray, stacking them up in a walk-in refrigerator and waiting. Up to a month in some cases.

Hong Kong police on Wednesday searched for a valuable painting mistakenly dumped in a landfill after it sold for $3.7 million at auction, reports said.

"Snowy Mountain" by Chinese artist Cui Ruzhuo, which was a main feature of the spring auction by Beijing-based Poly Culture this week, was dumped by cleaners at the luxury hotel hosting the sale, the South China Morning Post said.

Police in Massachusetts responding to reports of an intruder in a woman's home quickly quacked the case.

A North Reading (REH'-ding) woman called police Saturday from her upstairs bedroom to report that she heard loud banging noises downstairs and feared someone had broken into her home.