An Oregon jogger thought someone knocked him in the head or he got hit by lightning or may have suffered a stroke when he felt a big blow to the head last week as he was jogging in Bush's Pasture Park.

When the 58-year-old man, Ron Jaecks of Salem, was struck a second time he saw a large winged animal he thought was a massive bat.

Idaho lawmakers worried that special recognition of the Idaho giant salamander could lead to federal protections have rejected a grade school student's request that it be named the state amphibian.

The House State Affairs Committee voted 10-6 on Monday against 14-year-old Ilah Hickman's plan. It was her fifth attempt in as many years to persuade lawmakers that students made a good choice for state amphibian.

A Kenyan school bus driver died after drinking a potion brewed by a "witchdoctor" to prove he had not stolen books, sparking angry protests from villagers, a report said Tuesday.

The school directors in a village in Kenya's southwestern Kisii district hired a witchdoctor to seek out the thief of school books, with the driver volunteering to drink a potion to prove he was innocent.

Japanese police are seeking a fraud charge against a provincial assemblyman who became globally famous after crying like a toddler over his alleged misuse of public funds, a report said Monday.

Hyogo prefectural police in western Japan submitted papers to prosecutors on Ryutaro Nonomura, 48, alleging fraud, Jiji Press news agency said. It is now up to prosecutors to decide whether to indict him.

The trial opened Monday of Korean Air heiress Cho Hyun-Ah, charged with aviation safety violations following a now notorious "nut rage" incident that triggered a national uproar.

Cho, who has been in custody since her formal arrest three weeks ago, was whisked into the western district court complex in Seoul by bus through a heavy media presence.

Love birds, beware: One Ohio county is planning to spike bird seed with birth control in hopes of keeping pigeons from despoiling the renovated exterior of its 19th Century courthouse.

The (Wooster) Daily Record (http://bit.ly/1Cl0DWt) reports Wayne County is spending millions to renovate a courthouse built in 1878 in downtown Wooster. But the county has long had a problem with pigeon droppings on metal statues and other ornamental elements atop the courthouse.

A video of a bald and burly Delaware police officer enthusiastically lip-syncing to Taylor Swift's "Shake it Off" is getting global attention.

The video, posted to the Dover Police Department's Facebook page Friday, shows Master Cpl. Jeff Davis in uniform, driving a patrol car while lip-syncing to the popular pop song — sassy head rolls and finger-pointing included.

When top U.S. diplomat John Kerry rushed towards the French president, arms open, to warmly embrace him on Friday, what followed was a cringeworthy culture clash that has befuddled many a visitor to France.

The French are just not that into hugging.

A man searching for his wallet in a trash bin in Northern California was scooped up by a garbage truck and taken on a long ride.

The Oroville Mercury Register reports (http://bit.ly/14JIPc3 ) that the man survived the ride in the rear of a garbage truck. His name was not released.

U.S. experts are scratching their heads after finding a more than 130-year-old Wild West rifle leaning against a Juniper tree in a remote area of a national park.

The Winchester Model 1873 firearm was found in Great Basin National Park in Nevada by a park employee, Eva Jensen, who happened to be working in the area with an archaeology team.