With spiraling land prices turning even the darkest corners of London into potential goldmines, the city's forgotten spaces, including 19th-century public toilets, are blossoming into restaurants, cafes and boutiques.

Scores of Thai farmers ditched their paddy fields for the race course Tuesday to sprint across a dusty track on the backs of prized water buffalo, vying for glory in a decades-old racing contest.

Philippine thieves have been using low-tech sticky tree sap to rob high-tech cash dispenser machines in banks, police said Tuesday.

A charity for migrants in the French port city of Calais was forced to scrap a food handout after some refused the meal because it was not spicy enough, the group said Tuesday.

Squirrels make a "good food source" and should be served up as a way of controlling the population, the organizer of a controversial squirrel burger cooking contest said on Tuesday.

A U.S. mother has been charged after her four-year-old daughter handed out packets of heroin to friends at daycare in Delaware, mistakenly thinking they were candy, police said Tuesday.

Ashley Tull, 30, was charged on Monday with maintaining a drug property and has lost custody of her two daughters and a son.

China has taken 160,000 "phantom" government staff off its official payroll who were receiving salaries despite not doing any work, state-media reported on Monday.

A total of 162,629 officials who were taking government wages without working have been removed in a nationwide campaign over the last year, the People's Daily newspaper said.

Classic car enthusiasts have broken a Guinness world record for the biggest parade of its sort, lining up 1,721 shining Mustangs and Cadillacs as well as cheerily decorated Volkswagen Beetles.

Australian police said Monday they had begun a murder probe after they found human remains in an apartment, but refused to confirm reports that body parts were cooking on the stove.

Brazilians re-elected a clown named Tiririca (Grumpy) to Congress on Sunday with one million votes, the second-highest number of any candidate, election officials said.

Tiririca was first elected to represent Sao Paulo in 2010, winning the most votes of any candidate in the country after running on the slogan "It can't get any worse."