After all these years, Uno is still No. 1.

More than 2,700 dogs entered in the Westminster Kennel Club show that started Monday, with a couple of clear favorites. Rumor the German shepherd and Charlie the Skye terrier head the pack, and could be picked as the nation's top pooch.

Italian olive grower Federico Manni is at the end of his tether.

"You see this one," he says, waving in the direction of a majestic but diseased olive tree on his property near Gallipoli on the Salento peninsula on Italy's heel.

A letter from a man to his mother flown out of Paris by hot air balloon during the Prussian siege has turned up in Australia's National Archives, which Tuesday said it was keen to know the family's fate.

The Franco-Prussian War saw the Germans completely surround Paris for more than four months in 1870.

France's freshly reshuffled government left some puzzled Friday over the role of new ministries such as that of "real equality", while another linking "family, children and women's rights" has irked feminists.

French President Francois Hollande on Thursday announced the government shake-up in a bid to gain fresh political momentum 15 months ahead of presidential elections.

Police in northern India will soon use slingshots loaded with chilli powder and marbles to tackle unruly protesters in the world's largest democracy, an inspector said on Wednesday.

Not content with water cannon, tear gas and traditional wooden sticks or lathis, police in Haryana state close to New Delhi will turn to the slingshots as a "non-lethal way" to control violent crowds. 

Britain's craziest game of football unleashed chaos Tuesday as several thousand townsfolk tussled for a ball in a heaving melee that can last for eight hours.

The Royal Shrovetide Football match is an adrenaline-fueled tradition with roots going back to at least the 12th century -- and the game has barely moved on since then.

Police in central India arrested a goat and its owner for repeatedly damaging a senior bureaucrat's garden, a local official said Tuesday.

Police in Chhattisgarh state sprang into action on Monday, registering a case against the man and his animal for chewing up the district magistrate's garden.

A Chinese baby boy who was declared dead and spent the night in a morgue showed signs of life just as he was about to be cremated, local TV reported.

Workers at the crematorium in Pan'an in the eastern province of Zhejiang were preparing to cremate the baby on Friday when he suddenly starting moaning, provincial television reported.

Town hall meetings at a village in Brazil turned into drunken brawls so often that the mayor has resorted to breathalyzer tests before the councilors can take their seats.

The sessions in Pianco in northeast Brazil's Paraiba state had become so notorious the town council is known among locals as "the dog pound" because of all the fighting, news reports said Saturday.

The new Chinese year is the one to go bananas over. On Feb. 8, the zodiac calendar enters the Year of the Monkey — the ninth of 12 animal signs. Plastic monkeys are adorning shopping centers and office buildings, and government departments have been giving out toy monkeys.

Having a baby in the Year of the Monkey is generally thought to be more auspicious than in that of its predecessor, the sheep, and the cute creature is in any case largely beloved by the masses for its playful and human-like characteristics, despite a penchant for stealing food.