Lithuania abandoned the litas Thursday when it became the 19th country to adopt the euro but at least one of the old bills is still in vogue, a gay activist said Friday.

Vladimir Simonko, co-founder of the Lithuanian Gay League, told Agence France Presse the 10-litas note -- which features two pilots in uniform -- was being traded in gay circles in Western Europe for as much as 10 pounds sterling (12.80 euros, $15.30), which is about four times its value at the current exchange rate.

Some 10,000 people from around the world have applied to be shot at as a paintball bullet tester, the British company posting the job advert said Friday.

UKPaintball, which has more than 60 paintballing venues in Britain, said it was stunned by the response to its search for a "human bullet impact tester".

It was an embarrassing Christmas for Nivea Cabrera after she was accused by her fiance's mother of letting her 5-year-old granddaughter play with a sex toy. A mortified Carbrera asked the child where she got the penis-shaped plastic cylinder.

"It's from my Play-Doh," the girl replied.

Two young members of France's far right National Front have been expelled from the party for spiking the drink of its second-in-command with a laxative.

The incident took place while FN vice-president Louis Aliot, who is also the boyfriend of party leader Marine Le Pen, was visiting the party's Bordeaux offices several months ago.

After a long night of celebrating the arrival of 2015 tens of thousands of Europeans saw no better way to begin the new year than to jump into freezing water.

In the Netherlands alone some 50,000 people, many wearing knitted caps in trademark Dutch orange, took a mass plunge in the North Sea, which hovered at a brisk seven degrees celsius (44 degrees fahrenheit).

Fifty-one years ago, Arthur Lampitt of Granite City, Illinois, smashed his 1963 Thunderbird into a truck. This week during surgery in suburban St. Louis, a 7-inch turn signal lever from that T-Bird was removed from his left arm.

Dr. Timothy Lang removed the lever Wednesday during a 45-minute operation. Lampitt, now 75, is recovering at home.

A wall at a Morton Salt storage facility has collapsed, burying several cars at a next-door auto dealership in road salt.

Company spokeswoman Denise Lauer says a side wall broke Tuesday afternoon, spilling road salt outside of the facility on Chicago's northwest side and onto the neighboring property. Morton Salt Inc. is a more than 100-year-old company based in Chicago best known for its pourable table salt.

A woman has been jailed on charges she broke into a stranger's central Pennsylvania home after a night of drinking and was found by police in bed.

The Centre Daily Times (http://bit.ly/14axdj1 ) reports state police responded to an alarm about 4:15 a.m. Sunday in Liberty Township, Centre County.

Alaska drivers will have the choice of a retro look when they obtain new license plates next spring.

The state is bringing back plates that feature red lettering on white plates and a grizzly bear standing on its hind legs.

Fireworks coordinator Phil Grucci has a request of Mother Nature in this city of glitzy shows: If you're going to let it snow on New Year's Eve, let it snow at just the right moment, like right before midnight when his show launches from the Las Vegas Strip.

Grucci, president and creative director of Fireworks by Grucci, talked about the weather as he stood atop the Treasure Island casino-hotel on the Strip on Tuesday, one of seven hotel rooftops where 70 workers have been readying the displays since the day after Christmas.