A Portuguese policeman was Friday handed a 22-month suspended jail sentence for wearing his service weapon while performing stripteases.

The 32-year-old officer admitted to the court in Novo de Sao Joao that he wore his uniform to make his performances "more realistic", but claimed the firearm was a replica of his service pistol, the Lusa news agency reported.

Two Secret Service agents being probed for allegedly crashing a car into White House security barriers after a boozy night out drove right through a bomb investigation scene there, The Washington Post reported Friday.

As part of the latest embarrassment to the service, the officers drove right past the suspicious package, which turned out to be a book, the Post said, quoting current and former government officials.

A German association representing pedestrians has called for a ban on people staring at their smartphones while walking through city traffic, to cut down on accidents.

It was "common knowledge" that smartphones distract users from the traffic dangers around them, argued the Association of Pedestrian Traffic Germany in the latest edition of its magazine.

Belgium hit out at France on Thursday after Paris forced it to scrap a new two-euro coin celebrating the 200th anniversary of the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.

Around 180,000 of the coins had already been produced when France objected on the grounds that it would create tensions, with Europe's unity already under threat, officials said.

Forensic experts in Italy said Thursday they had reconstructed the DNA of a national war hero and poet by analyzing semen he left on a handkerchief given to a lover 100 years ago.

In a global first, the proto-fascist warmonger Gabriele D'Annunzio's DNA was reconstructed without exhuming his remains, forensic police said, raising hopes the technique could be used to solve cold cases.

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating claims that some of its agents crashed a car into White House security barriers after a boozy night out, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

If the allegation is confirmed, it would only be the latest in a series of errors to taint the agency, which provides U.S. President Barack Obama's security team, following high-profile security breaches and a prostitution scandal.

A man convicted of child molestation has admitted mailing a threatening letter from a western Pennsylvania prison to President Barack Obama — albeit to the wrong address.

Joseph Savage pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to counts of threatening the president and threatening the president's family.

A 200-word essay and $125 is all it will take to become the proud owner of a bucolic New England inn, says its owner, who won the establishment in the same way. 

For more than two decades, Janice Sage has run the Center Lovell Inn, a majestic bed and breakfast nestled in western Maine, famous for its cross-country skiing and mountain vistas.

The imprint of a license plate in a snowbank proved to be the undoing of a couple suspected of a series of burglaries in Massachusetts.

A Lakeville police officer investigating a home break-in traced the imprint to a pickup truck that matched the description of a vehicle seen at other burglaries.

An Arizona sheriff's department says some of the marijuana bales that suspects tossed out of an SUV during a high-speed chase last week got picked up by passing vehicles.

Dash-cam video released by the Pinal County Sheriff's Office shows many of the 21 bales of pot inside the SUV flying out a window and onto roadways during the March 4 chase. Several of the bales broke apart as they bounced on the pavement.