Revelers at Rio's 450th birthday party bash this Sunday are licking their lips at the prospect of devouring a slice of a 450-meter-long (1,500 feet) cake.

And if the 2.1 tons of sugar don't give you a head rush, the scale of the ingredients will: 2.5 tons of flour; 3,000 eggs; 1,000 liters of milk -- and as much again of whipped cream.

If you've ever wanted to sleep with a giant lizard -- and let's face it, you only live once -- one Japanese hotel has just the thing with its soon-to-be opened Godzilla Room.

Hotel Gracery in Tokyo's buzzing entertainment district of Shinjuku offers the chance to catch some shuteye under the watchful gaze of a man-size atomic mutant as he stomps on a miniature Japanese capital in the corner of your room.

A sea turtle that was rescued from frigid Northwest waters and treated at the Oregon Coast Aquarium has caught a ride back to California on a Coast Guard training flight.

The aquarium in Newport says the endangered olive ridley turtle named Solstice hitched a ride Tuesday on a Coast Guard C-130 and will complete her rehabilitation at SeaWorld in San Diego.

Some 150 pets including mice, rats and guinea pigs have been found in an Australian home, an animal welfare group said Wednesday as it warned about the hoarding of animals. 

The RSPCA said the small creatures, which also included ducks and other birds, were seized from the house in the capital Canberra.

The Czech film academy was left red-faced after being hoaxed into allowing a man impersonating Hollywood funnyman Jim Carrey on the stage as a special guest at its annual awards ceremonies.

"We were the victims of an elaborate hoax," the Czech Film and Television Academy (CFTA) said about the embarrassing bungle that hit the prestigious "Cesky Lev" (Czech Lion) awards ceremonies over the weekend.

The wife of Malaysia's prime minister, who is widely mocked over reports of her taste for luxury, drew fresh scorn on Tuesday after she complained about the rising cost of house calls from hairdressers and tailors.

Rosmah Mansor, 63, is a controversial figure in Malaysia, where she is routinely portrayed by critics as out of touch with ordinary citizens struggling to make ends meet.

Energy-saving LED traffic lights seemed like a cool way to cut back on electricity costs, but Japanese police said Monday they might just be too cool -- because they don't melt snow.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) account for around 45 percent of all of Japan's stop-and-go signals and that proportion is growing as local authorities cotton on to their economizing possibilities compared with regular incandescent lights.

"Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas", a film which promises to "put Christ back into Christmas" and actress Cameron Diaz triumphed at the Razzies anti-award show, Hollywood's hall of shame.

On the eve of the Oscars, the movie -- of which one critic said "even devout born-again Christians will find this hard to stomach" -- took the worst picture, as well as worst actor, worst screenplay and worst screen combo on Saturday.

A government agency in Peshawar has hired a man who claims to have killed 100,000 rats in a bid to rid the northwestern Pakistani city of the rodents that plague its streets.

Naseer Ahmad, who has been assigned the straightforward job title of "Rat Killer", will receive a monthly salary of 15,000 rupees ($147), as well as a 2,000-rupee bonus per mission.

Some dogs wandering the streets of Iran's capital may be strays but authorities plan to ensure they are never truly lost by fitting them out with GPS, media reported Friday.

According to Tehran municipality, which works with a number of animal protection agencies, the project to vaccinate and track strays in the city aims to protect them from the public.