What's shaped like your friend and even sounds like your friend, but isn't actually your friend? Why, a human-shaped pillow with a slot in its head for a cellphone, of course.

One Japanese venture is looking to solve that problem of feeling distant when speaking on the telephone by offering cushions that look a little like small people, with a skin-like texture, that can hold your mobile device.

An effort to use a fake, life-sized orca to scare off hundreds of sea lions crowding docks off the Oregon coast ended, at least temporarily, Thursday night with the fiberglass creature belly-up after it was swamped by a passing ship.

Still, Port of Astoria Executive Director Jim Knight said the sea lions briefly "got deathly silent" when the orca sailed into view. That was just before it started listing and tipped over.

There's a new Chinese restaurant in Rochester. The name? I Don't Know.

Seriously, the I Don't Know Chinese Restaurant recently opened in the western New York city. Owner Jessie Dong tells the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester (http://on.rocne.ws/1K98JYg ) that said she came up with the unusual name because whenever she would ask her three children what they wanted to eat, their response would be: "I don't know."

Sorry, baby, your picture isn't going to be on the front of any beer bottles in New Hampshire.

Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan on Tuesday vetoed a measure that would have allowed some images of minors to grace alcoholic beverage labels as long as they didn't encourage young people to drink.

North Pole residents can put marijuana on their Christmas list next year.

The city council in North Pole, Alaska, rejected a measure Monday that would have banned marijuana dispensaries. Marijuana became legal in Alaska in February, and sales begin next year.

Maybe the Bank of Japan should be called the Bank of Peter Pan.

Monetary policy is notoriously tricky stuff, but for central bankers looking to validate their influential decisions it's as simple as remembering the boy who never grew up, says BoJ chief Haruhiko Kuroda.

Slathered with fake tan and flexing bulging muscles, dozens of underwear-clad bodybuilders competed for the coveted title of "Mr. Afghanistan" in a Soviet-era stadium in Kabul.

Bodybuilding is one of the most popular sports among young people in the war-battered country -- permitted even under the Taliban's hardline regime.

When a gigantic mural of St. George appeared next to a historic church dedicated to the revered figure, many hailed it as a brilliant piece of street art. But the influential Romanian Orthodox Church was not amused.

The surreal interpretation, replete with a faceless saint and a masked unicorn with a pink tail, went up just yards from the 18th century church — triggering outrage from priests and pious residents. Days later it was painted over.

A bird weighing just two teaspoons of sugar scares off a predator 40 times its size by imitating the "hawk alarm" of other species, scientists said Wednesday.

The trick is used by the brown thornbill, one of Australia's tiniest birds, to scare off its much larger enemy, the pied currawong, they reported in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Japan is looking at installing toilets in elevators and providing an emergency supply of drinking water for people trapped by the nation's frequent powerful earthquakes, an official said Wednesday.

The move comes after dozens of people were left high and dry, some for over an hour, following a 7.8 magnitude quake on Saturday that stopped lifts.