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Panama Earns Guinness Record with 5,000 Painting Kids

Panama earned a Guinness world record Saturday when 5,084 children painted a mural simultaneously for three and a half minutes as part of 100th anniversary celebrations for the Panama Canal, organizers said.

Panamanian painter Olga Sinclair was behind the massive work of art depicting the canal locks at the El Prado promenade in Panama City.

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Spanish Pets Queue for Blessing on St. Anthony's Day

Dogs, cats, rabbits, ferrets and more exotic pets flocked to a Madrid church on Friday to be blessed with holy water on Saint Anthony's Day.

In the city center, long queues of owners and pets stretched to the doors of the Church of Saint Anthony, patron saint of animals.

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U.S. Clothing Store Goes Pubic for Valentine's Day

U.S. clothing chain American Apparel has sparked controversy by putting mannequins sprouting pubic hair in the windows of their shop in New York's boho Lower East Side.

Passersby stopped to gawk, take photographs, chuckle or raise a horrified eyebrow at the stick-thin plastic models decked out in see-through bras and panties, with bushy bikini lines.

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Lighting Costs Rio's iconic Christ Statue Tip of Thumb

The iconic statue of Jesus overlooking Rio de Janeiro, one of the city's most recognizable landmarks, has lost a thumb tip to lightening, a report said Friday.

Christ the Redeemer, the giant monument and tourist magnet that looms atop nearby Mount Corcovado, was damaged in a huge storm Thursday night, O Globo newspaper reported on its website.

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Researchers: Cyberattack Traced to Hacked Refrigerator

Call it the attack of the zombie refrigerators.

Computer security researchers said this week they discovered a large "botnet" which infected Internet-connected home appliances and then delivered more than 750,000 malicious emails.

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Nun Gives Birth in Italy, Names Baby Francis

A Salvadorean nun who said she had no idea she was pregnant gave birth in Italy this week after she felt stomach cramps in her convent and was rushed to hospital, Italian media reported on Friday.

The 31-year-old mother and her baby boy, who weighs 3.5 kilograms (nine pounds), are doing well and other new mothers in Rieti hospital have begun collecting clothes and donations for her, the reports said.

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Truck Dumps Huge Pile of Dung outside French Assembly

A truck dumped a huge pile of manure outside France's National Assembly on Thursday in a protest against the French political elite.

The driver of the truck -- which was marked with the slogan "Out with Hollande and the whole political class!" -- was apprehended by police shortly after releasing his smelly load outside the front gates of the grand Palais Bourbon that hosts the lower house Assembly.

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Radical Jewish Settlers Seek Image Makeover with Sushi

Radical Jewish settlers from a West Bank outpost with a reputation for violence have set up a sushi business in a bid to revamp their image, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

The culinary venture is being run out of Esh Kodesh, a small unauthorized outpost in the northern West Bank populated by settlers who have frequently attacked local Palestinians.

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Weird and Wonderful World of British Royal Gifts Revealed

A garden gnome, a chocolate royal coach and a falconry glove were among the gifts presented to Britain's royal household last year, it was revealed on Wednesday.

Queen Elizabeth II was the lucky recipient of a gold jewelled photo frame set on a jeweled ostrich egg when Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, president of the United Arab Emirates, made a state visit last April, according to an official list released by officials at Buckingham Palace and Clarence House.

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Drunk Arrested for Trying to Douse Arc de Triomphe Flame

A drunken man has been arrested for trying to douse the eternal flame at the landmark Arc de Triomphe monument in Paris, police said Wednesday.

The man parked his car on Tuesday evening near the famed monument on the Champs Elysees, the city's emblematic avenue, and rushed towards the flame with a fire extinguisher in hand.

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