Police in the Gaza Strip on Monday captured a crocodile that roamed the sewerage system of a town in the north of the enclave, the Palestinian territory's Hamas rulers said.

"The Palestinian police were able to use a boat to catch a crocodile that was hiding in the sewerage system in the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip," the Hamas interior ministry said in a statement.

The first ballots of the 2012 White House race were cast in the tiny northeastern town of Dixville Notch Tuesday, with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney each receiving five votes.

The first-in-the-nation vote, held shortly after midnight, was tied for the first time in its history, another indication of the knife's edge separating the two candidates in a race that should be decided by the end of the day.

A Chinese man who swallowed a fake stone in a daring bluff that allowed an accomplice to get away with a real diamond pleaded guilty Monday to aiding theft and was given a fine and two-year suspended jail term.

Colombo chief magistrate Rashmi Singappuli ordered the 32-year-old man to pay 100,000 rupees ($770) over the incident in September when he swallowed the fake stone at an annual gem exhibition.

Wild dogs mauled a young child to death at a zoo in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh on Sunday, officials said.

"It is with heavy hearts we report that a tragic accident occurred Sunday at 11:45 a.m. when a young child fell into the African painted dog exhibit and was killed," the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium said in a statement.

Sudan's veteran Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi, linked to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, hopes U.S. President Barack Obama will win a second term on Tuesday.

"Obama of course," Turabi told Agence France Presse when asked about his U.S. presidential preference during an interview.

Volunteers in India armed with drums and whistles are to lead a crackdown on going to the toilet in public under a new scheme in the western state of Rajasthan, a report said Monday.

"We are constructing public toilets... and people will be encouraged to use them," Ramniwas Jat, head of the state's Jhunjhunu district council, told the Times of India.

Galactic tourism may still be a daydream for most of us, but for anyone interested in a glimpse of the International Space Station sooner, NASA is ready to help.

The U.S. space agency, celebrating the 12th anniversary of astronauts living and working on the orbiting lab, launched a new service Friday that alerts people when the space station is visible from their backyard.

New York has kept a lid on crime and looting despite days of electricity blackouts, in contrast to the disorder that marred New Orleans seven years ago after Hurricane Katrina.

The August 2005 storm in Louisiana saw widespread violent crime and looting while the authorities were distracted with search and rescue operations in rapidly deteriorating circumstances.

Three top Dutch medical schools are asking thousands of travellers to tropical countries to donate stool samples on return for a study into the rise in antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.

The combined study, launched this week by the Academic (AMC), Erasmus and Maastricht medical centres will focus on 2,000 travellers mainly to Asia and Africa, said AMC researcher Jarne van Hattem.

A bizarre spate of young blackbird deaths at a school in England was likely caused by the feathered teens getting drunk on fermented berries, crashing mid-air and falling from the sky, vets said Saturday.

Police and animal experts were called in after more than a dozen birds were found dead at a primary school in Cumbria last August -- many of them sporting serious injuries.