Once a symbol of Beirut's golden age, the St. Georges hotel today is but a hollow shell at the center of an epic real estate battle pitting its owner against powerful developers.

"Before the (1975-1990 civil) war, Lebanon was the world's capital and the St. Georges was the capital of Beirut," recalls Serge Nader, whose family ran the beach adjacent to the hotel until 1997.

Yoda's short tufts of hair, protruding tongue, and long, seemingly hairless legs were enough to earn it the World's Ugliest Dog title at a Northern California fair.

The 14-year-old Chinese crested and Chihuahua mix won the honor Friday night at the 23rd annual contest at the Sonoma Marin Fair.

Same-sex marriage is now legal in New York after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill that was narrowly passed by state lawmakers Friday, handing activists a breakthrough victory in the state where the American gay rights movement was born.

New York becomes the sixth state where gay couples can wed and the biggest by far.

Forget mice. A Swiss cat named Speedy has an eye for finer things.

Speedy has stolen so much loot that its owner had to post leaflets throughout a northern Swiss town saying "Help, our cat steals!" and inviting people to recover their missing things.

Days before a college football player was arrested on a U.S. Airways flight at San Francisco airport following a dispute over his saggy pants, the airline allowed another man wearing skimpy women's panties and mid-thigh stockings to fly, according to a passenger and airline spokeswoman.

Jill Tarlow, a passenger on a June 9 flight from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Phoenix, took a photo of the scantily clad man, which she provided to the San Francisco Chronicle. The newspaper published the photo in its Wednesday edition.

State regulators say a gambler won a $25,000 jackpot on a Pittsburgh casino slot machine that should have paid out only $12.

The Gaming Control Board tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the false jackpot happened on May 29, 2010. It was one of five at Rivers Casino involving machines that were not properly tested or certified.

A self-proclaimed Australian witch who claimed she was beyond earthly laws before dragging a policeman hundreds of metres with her car was sentenced to jail on Thursday but 'declined' her term.

Journalist-turned-witch Eilish De'Avalon pleaded guilty to recklessly causing serious injury to Senior Constable Andrew Logan, who was hauled almost 200m along the road after he pulled her over.

Dutch airline KLM announced on Wednesday that it will use a biofuel generated from used cooking oil to power more than 200 commercial flights between Paris and Amsterdam starting in September.

"There will be 50 percent traditional kerosene and 50 percent biofuel extracted from used cooking oil," KLM spokesman Gedi Schrijver told Agence France Presse, adding that KLM is the first airline to use this type of fuel in commercial flights.

An Austrian court Wednesday sentenced a German man who robbed several banks while wearing a mask of U.S. President Barack Obama to 12 years in prison.

The 45-year-old, who had already served a prison sentence in Germany for another series of bank robberies, was found guilty of holding up six banks and attempting a seventh in the northern province of Upper Austria between 2008 and 2011, the court in Ried im Innkreis ruled.

One of Hong Kong's richest property tycoons will hand out a bonus worth $2 million to his 1,500 staff after his actress daughter-in-law gave birth to his sixth grandchild, his firm said Wednesday.

Lee Shau-kee, chairman of the leading property group Henderson Land Development, announced the windfall of HK$10,000 ($1,285) for employees to celebrate the baby boy who was born last week, said spokeswoman Bonnie Ngan.