A Berlin taxi driver told a German newspaper Tuesday how he witnessed history in the making when the man due to become Germany's next president was told the news in the back of his cab.

Russian-born Vadim Belon, 44, told Bild he just saw an older grey-haired chap with a suitcase when he picked up Joachim Gauck at the capital's Tegel airport late Sunday and set off to take him where he wanted to go.

An Indonesian maid was allegedly raped twice by a neighbor, who then cut and strangled her before throwing her out of the window of a second-story flat, according to media reports.

A Swede pulled from a snowed-in car claiming he had not eaten for two months had lived in the vehicle since mid-2011, media reported, as experts said the "miraculous survival" was theoretically possible.

The emaciated 44-year-old man, whose name has not been disclosed, was pulled from a totally snow-covered car parked deep in the woods near the northern Swedish town of Umeaa last Friday.

A small but growing number of teens and even younger children who think they were born the wrong sex are getting support from parents and from doctors who give them sex-changing treatments, according to reports in the medical journal Pediatrics.

It's an issue that raises ethical questions, and some experts urge caution in treating children with puberty-blocking drugs and hormones.

Police in Nepal said they had cracked down on members of the public using cannabis at a major Hindu festival where the drug is smoked legally by thousands of holy men to honour a Hindu god.

The wandering mystics -- known as sadhus -- use an ancient legal loophole to smoke marijuana during a night of celebrations in honor of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction, but ordinary Nepalis are not permitted to join them.

A court in Zimbabwe has sentenced a 17-year-old boy to be caned after he posted a picture of a woman on Facebook with a caption that called her a prostitute, state media said Monday.

The Herald newspaper said magistrate Tinashe Ndokera found the boy guilty of criminal insult, and ordered that he be caned twice.

John Fairfax, a self-proclaimed "professional adventurer" who became famous in 1969 as the first person to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean, has died near Las Vegas at the age of 74.

Fairfax was born in Italy to a British father and a Bulgarian mother, grew up in Argentina, and led a colorful life that included stretches as a big-game hunter and even a cigarette smuggler.

It's classic parent-teenager strife, revamped for the Internet age: A 15-year-old takes to Facebook to curse her parents and complain about chores and the pressures of youth. Her disgusted father videotapes and posts a lengthy rebuttal punctuated by nine gunshots as he empties his pistol into her laptop.

The bizarre incident in North Carolina has garnered more than 26 million views on YouTube and tens of thousands more on Facebook, touching a nerve with others tired of their kids' attitudes but also drawing backlash from parents who have kept such desires in check, people who believe the father is the one being childish.

Under a shower of confetti and pulsating samba beats, legendary King Momo on Friday officially launched Rio's famed Carnival, a dazzling extravaganza broadcast to a worldwide television audience.

Flanked by his queen and two princesses, the blue-crowned king, 160-kilogram (352 pounds) Milton Junior, symbolically received a giant key to the city from Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes.

Catholics and conservatives have denounced as blasphemous two recent exhibitions in Madrid featuring kinky nuns in lingerie and tattooed and near-naked Christs, demonstrating outside one gallery.

Catholic group AES called a demonstration for Friday evening outside the Fresh Gallery in Madrid against its latest exhibition: "Obscenity", a collection of photographs by Canadian artist Bruce LaBruce.