Shakespeare asked if he should compare his lover "to a summer's day." A New York zoo suggests cockroaches instead.

Ahead of Valentine's Day next month the Bronx Zoo wants New Yorkers to pay $10 for the right to give their sweetheart's name -- or perhaps that of an ex -- to one of its Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

Authorities in Uzbekistan are, apparently, unwilling to give love a chance.

The Russian news agency RIA-Novosti cited several local media in the Central Asian nation reporting Tuesday that Uzbekistan has canceled concerts and other events for Valentine's Day. Instead, residents in the capital of Tashkent can enjoy readings of poems by Mughal emperor Babur, who died in the 16th century.

In-your-face drivers, unsmiling pedestrians and more than eight million people in a rush: New York has been named America's rudest city.

The January issue of Travel and Leisure magazine gave the Big Apple the honor, saying readers voted America's most populous city at the head of a list of 20.

New Zealand police said Tuesday they were shocked at the number of mothers they found breastfeeding babies while driving along motorways in the country's largest city Auckland.

Police said they stopped three breastfeeding drivers this month while carrying out a 10-day operation aimed at ensuring children were properly restrained in vehicles.

A Saudi woman who defied a driving ban in the kingdom was injured and her companion killed when their car overturned in the northern Hael province, a police spokesman said on Monday.

"One woman was immediately killed and her companion who was driving the car was hospitalized after she suffered several injuries" when their four-wheel-drive vehicle overturned late on Saturday, said police spokesman Abdulaziz al-Zunaidi.

A German city that introduced a surcharge on street prostitutes via kerb-side meters said Monday the program had been a success and would continue.

The Bonn government said a "sex tax" covering levies on sauna clubs, "erotic centers" and automated pay stations similar to parking meters that were rolled out in August had brought in around 250,000 euros ($326,000) last year.

An Indian minister has vowed to wear only laceless footwear after he was caught by television cameras using a young man to tie up his shoes at a public function.

Gauri Shankar Bisen, a minister in the state government of Madhya Pradesh, has apologized and admitted that it was a "mistake" to have the young student work on his shoes as he awaited the start of an event in the state.

Now that older men have ditched it to look cool, the stylish young are reclaiming the necktie as their own, with the once-derided accessory making a stealthy comeback on the menswear runways.

"I never wear one," Antoine Arnault, the 34-year-old son of luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault told Agence France Presse on the sidelines of the first ever menswear show by the LVMH-owned shoemaker Berluti -- where ties were a full part of the look.

The federal government now says a 101-year-old Detroit woman it promised could move back into her foreclosed home four months ago can't return because the building's unsanitary and unsafe.

Texana Hollis was evicted Sept. 12 and her belongings placed outside after her 65-year-old son failed to pay property taxes linked to a reverse mortgage and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development foreclosed on the home.

Want to know what's in store for 2012? Who will win the US election? Will the eurozone implode? China's feng shui masters tackle the big issues with their predictions for the Year of the Dragon.

As Chinese communities around the world prepare to ring in the new year on Monday, astrologers and geomancers are predicting the dragon will bring natural disasters and financial volatility, especially to crisis-hit Europe.