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U.S. Treasure Hunt for Girlfriend Prompts Bomb Scare

A bomb squad thought a package marked "Army" was suspicious, but it was just part of an elaborate plan by a guy trying to ask a girl to a dance.

St. George police rushed to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple on Saturday after the package was placed near a gazebo.

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Belgium's Chocolate Stamps Offer Lick with a Kick

Feel like having chocolate at Easter in Belgium? Well, send a letter and really lick that chocolate-flavored postal stamp.

The Belgian post office released 538,000 stamps on Monday that have pictures of chocolate on the front but the essence of cacao oil in the glue at the back for taste and in the ink for smell.

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Indian City Uses Cardboard Cops to Enforce Road Rules

Police in India's high-tech hub Bangalore are trying a new way to reduce traffic offences -- using cardboard cops to scare drivers into believing the long arm of the law is watching them.

Road deaths have surged in India despite a low rate of car ownership with a lethal combination of poor law enforcement, untrained drivers and bad roads making the country one of the world's leading centers of road deaths.

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U.S. Owner Traced after Diving Camera Drifts to Taiwan

A Taiwanese airline said Monday it has traced the American owner of a diving camera, which was lost in Hawaii in 2007 and was found last month on a Taiwan beach more than 6,000 miles (9,600 km) away.

Flag carrier China Airlines said the owner of the Canon camera, identified as Lindsay Crumbley Scallan from Georgia, would be offered a free round-trip ticket to Taiwan to collect it.

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'Francophile Fever' Sweeps Liberated Mali

On a market stall in the Malian capital, stickers of Lionel Messi, Madonna and Osama bin Laden fight for space with the far more popular image of Francois Hollande, the French President.

Other stalls offer tricolors and T-shirts bearing pro-French slogans as Mali, bursting with gratitude over France's intervention to drive Islamists out of its northern cities, celebrates its former colonial ruler like never before.

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Mister Donut in Japan Serves Bleach, Sickens Five

At least five people who were served bleach-laced water at a Mister Donut store in Japan had to be treated by medics, the operator said Monday.

Duskin Co, a Japanese cleaning company that also operates the U.S. fast food franchise in the country, said one of its stores in Osaka served a diluted solution of bleach as drinking water on Friday.

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Swedes Mystified by Seal Pup Found in Forest

A seal pup was found in a forest in eastern Sweden on Sunday almost six kilometers (four miles) from the closest body of open water, raising questions as to how it got there, Swedish media reported.

"A somewhat confused person called and said he was out walking in the woods where he had found a seal pup. I thought he was joking at first," Uppsala police inspector Henrik Pederson told news agency TT.

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New Yorkers Boldly Flout Law to Keep Pigs

Pigs have long gotten a bad rap. The four-legged ungulates are considered so messy and stinky that they're synonymous with slovenliness: Eat too much and you're pigging out. Forget to clean up and your house is a pig pen. And when is a pig happiest?

That stigma is perhaps no greater than in New York City, where high-rises and apartments are hardly hospitable to pigs. The city's health code forbids keeping them as pets, forcing pig owners to operate in secret — or boldly take the risk an unhappy neighbor might squeal.

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Waiter, there's Nicaraguan Iguana in my Soup!

Catholics tired of fish on Friday can enjoy a Lent-friendly smorgasbord in Nicaragua, where soups made with iguana or armadillo are served with a healthy portion of bull testicles.

The delicacies violate local laws against eating such species during their breeding period, but are seen as a meat-free dish in the lead-up to Easter. They are also considered an aphrodisiac, and thus popular with older men.

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Cherry Trees Reach Full Bloom in Tokyo

Tokyo's cherry trees were in stunning full bloom on Friday, Japan's weather agency said, marking the second earliest blossoming in the capital on record.

The national weather service used Tokyo's central Yasukuni Shrine as a barometer to judge the peak of the season, which sees a riot of white and delicate pinks exploding in parks, temple grounds, schools and on streets.

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