The U.S. Secret Service has requested $8 million to build a replica of the White House for use in training agents to prevent incidents like last year's mansion intrusion, the agency's director said Tuesday.

Joseph Clancy said the agency's current rudimentary training facility, in Beltsville, Maryland, is not to scale, and has "no structures, vehicle gates, lighting, or other aides to enhance the training simulations."

A bill for $1.40 sent out by a Maine water district almost a half-century ago has finally been returned.

The Brunswick and Topsham Water District mailed the bill to a resident of Topsham in October 1969. The bill was supposed to be returned to the water district by the post office because the customer's post office box had been closed.

Celebrating her 100th birthday with a parachute jump is not enough for South African Georgina Harwood. She plans to make her centenary even more exciting by doing a shark cage dive on Monday.

Her birthday skydive was a tandem jump in which she was in harness with another person. The jump took place Saturday near the Melkbosstrand area north of Cape Town.

A chewy cheese made by generations of yak herders in Nepal has become an unexpected hit overseas -- as a dog treat -- bringing entrepreneurs and Himalayan farmers a windfall.

Known as "Churpi", the dried cheese made from churned yak's milk and cow's milk has long been a popular snack domestically.   

A Frenchman tried to smuggle his Russian wife into the European Union by hiding her in a massive suitcase, without realizing there had been no need for the would-be James Bond scheme.

Poland's border guards detained the man, who authorities said was in his 60s, on Friday at the railway station in Terespol, an eastern town on the border with Belarus.  

An Irish Catholic priest gave a whole new meaning to "white collar boxing" at the weekend after taking to the ring to battle a parishioner in a charity fight.

Father Pierre "Jalapeno" Pepper donned the boxing gloves for the first time as part of his parish's fundraising "Saint Patrick's Weekend Punch-Up", ahead of Ireland's national day on Tuesday for its patron saint.

A 43-year-old Japanese woman who allegedly tried to strangle her husband because he did not give her a present in return for a Valentine's day gift was being quizzed by police on Monday.

Japanese men are supposed to offer presents to their partner on March 14, known as White Day, in return for the chocolates and other goodies they received on February 14, Valentine's Day.

A Chinese man who sued local government officials over an attack by a wild panda has won more than $80,000 in compensation, his lawyer said Monday.

The animals are renowned for their lovable appearance but despite their placid, bamboo-chewing image they are members of the bear family and have a fearsome bite.

An Indian bride walked out of her wedding after the bridegroom failed to solve a simple maths problem, leaving hundreds of disgruntled guests behind.

Police in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh where the wedding had been organised said the woman's relatives put the groom to the test after becoming concerned about his level of education.

Five drug raids in New Jersey have led to the seizure of the normal assortment of marijuana, ecstasy and guns and the removal of one not-so normal thing: a crocodile.

The Mercer County prosecutor's office says authorities found a small crocodile living in the basement of a Trenton house during a raid Thursday and turned it over to animal control. Along with the crocodile, authorities found marijuana there. Two men were arrested.