A monster bluefin tuna sold for a record-breaking $1.8 million in the year's first auction at Japan's Tsukiji fish market on Saturday, nearly three times the previous high set last year.

The 222-kilogram (488-pound) fish, caught off Japan's northern city of Oma, fetched a winning bid of 155.4 million yen (about $1.8 million), said an official at the Tokyo fish market.

A dog left home alone in Austria started a major house fire by switching on an electric hotplate with its paw while pinching food temptingly perched on top, police said Thursday.

The New Year's Day blaze in the western town of Steeg is believed to have started after the paper wrapping on the food then caught fire on the stove, Tyrol state police said.

Tens of thousands of Mexicans wolfed down a 1.9-kilometer (1.2-mile) long king cake on Thursday, polishing it off in less than half-an-hour during the traditional feast in downtown Mexico City.

The Epiphany pastry weighed almost 9.4 tonnes and was made with 4.9 tonnes of flour, 2.8 tonnes of butter, one tonne of sugar and marmalade, hundreds of kilos of candied fruits and more than 43,000 eggs, the city government said.

Disillusioned Slovaks are turning to the power of prayer in the hope of cleaning up politicians widely regarded as corrupt.

More than 400 people have vowed to pray for the politician of their choice for at least five minutes a day for six months since the Internet initiative was launched on Tuesday by Slovakia's Christian Youth Communities Association.

European scientists say they have found further evidence that how you serve food and drink matters hugely in the perception of taste.

Researchers at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Oxford recruited 57 volunteers and asked them to taste hot chocolate served in plastic cups with four different colors -- white, cream, red and orange with white on the inside.

A new law in Morocco seeks to clamp down on dangerous dogs and their owners who now face up to five years in jail in a country where more than 50,000 dog bite cases are recorded every year.

The text aiming to "protect people against the danger of dogs" was passed unanimously late on Wednesday by a parliamentary committee, and now becomes Morocco's first legislation aimed at tackling the problem.

Already famed for fake designer bags and pirated DVDs, imitation in China may have reached new heights with a set of towers that strongly resemble ones designed by renowned architect Zaha Hadid.

A developer in the southwestern city of Chongqing is putting up buildings that share the distinctive round contours and white stripes of a 39-floor shopping and office complex conceived by the British-Iraqi designer and being built in Beijing.

Jordan's elections commission on Wednesday approved an electoral list that was initially forbidden from registering under the name "Saddam Hussein," after the group agreed to change its title, state media said.

"The list has been accepted after it changed its name to the 'Nation's Honour.' Now we have 61 approved lists" for legislative elections this month, commission spokesman Hussein Bani Hani told the official news agency Petra.

Water, water everywhere -- just not in plastic bottles, says a town in the U.S. state of Massachusetts.

A law passed by the town of Concord went into effect with the New Year, making single-serving bottles of water illegal.

Japanese trucker Toshifumi Fujimoto is bored with his humdrum job, a daily run from Osaka to Tokyo or Nagasaki hauling tanker loads of gasoline, water or even chocolate.

Yet while the stocky, bearded 45-year-old could spend his free time getting a jolt of adrenaline by bungee-jumping or shark hunting, he puts his life on the line in a most unusual way.