Japan's luckiest lavatories have received a government award for their spotless appearance in a hard-fought contest among the nation's prettiest and most practical loos. 

A panel including architects and an official from the Japan Toilet Association sifted through nearly 400 applications before settling on two dozen municipalities and companies with the loveliest latrines.

A spate of noisy disputes between middle-aged women and nearby residents has prompted China's communist leaders to step in and regulate dancing in public places, state media said Monday.

Groups of dancers often gather on China's public squares and street corners performing choreographed routines to loud music, sometimes provoking anger from neighbours.

A Maine man who has hired a plane to fly banners protesting the NFL's four-game suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady again took to the air to gloat over a judge's reversal of that suspension.

The Portland Press Herald reports (http://bit.ly/1ipTaRR ) that Richard Pate's latest message — flown over Scarborough area beaches on Saturday — taunts NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell with the message: "Roger G. Feelin a Little Deflated?"

Where's the beef? On Saturday, it was at the Taste of Hamburg-er Festival in the eastern Pennsylvania town of Hamburg.

The town named after the German city held its 12 annual festival featuring food, music, eating competitions and children's activities. Some in attendance donned attire paying tribute to their favorite meat. There were more than 30 stands serving a variety of burgers.

Victoria Azarenka added a new word to the tennis lexicon Saturday after her U.S. Open win against Angelique Kerber -- 'pinish.'

The two-time runner-up won a third-round thriller 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 on a sixth match point, having trailed 2-5 in the first set.

They say a lightning strike started a fire in the Exeter, New Hampshire, town hall that caused the cancellation of a UFO festival the first year it was hosted by the local Kiwanis Club.

That's what they say anyway. (Cue the eerie music and get Steven Spielberg on the line right away.)

A man who tried to sell a backpack of dirty socks as marijuana has been sentenced to at least one year in a Michigan prison.

Michael Suarez was sentenced Thursday for committing fraud through false pretenses. An unarmed robbery charge was dropped.

Two online marketing companies that ceased publishing ads depicting former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer as an over-the-hill divorcee who needed a "revenge makeover" could still face legal action from her.

In a written statement, Brewer said that she was "pleased" they would stop running the ads with her image but the removal comes too little too late.

Huge stashes of seized marijuana are piling up at police stations across Spain, leaving officers dizzy and feeling like "they smoked something illegal", a police union said Thursday.

The problem is concentrated in rural areas with small police stations that are responsible for vast stretches of farmland where regular seizures of illegal marijuana are made in summer, according to Catalan police union USPAC.

Pope Francis went to an optician's in central Rome on Thursday to try on glasses, Italian media reported.

Arriving in an unmarked car in the late afternoon, the Argentine pontiff visited the shop in the historic and lively city center close to the famous Piazza del Popolo, drawing crowds outside the window.