Rats scurrying through New York's subway system better clean their sharp teeth: they're in a beauty contest!

Fed-up subway workers trying to draw attention to what they say is an infestation have offered a free monthly transport pass to whoever snaps the best picture of one of the furry menaces.

A Russian model-turned-Israeli lawmaker made a splash in Israel's parliament on Monday by dousing an Arab lawmaker with a glass of water after a spat during a committee hearing.

The unusual breach of protocol, even in the often-raucous Knesset, came after right-wing MP Anastassia Michaeli of the hardline Yisrael Beitenu traded barbs with Labor party lawmaker Ghaleb Majdale.

A leopard that wandered into a city in eastern India went on a rampage, killing one man, swiping off part of another man's scalp and injuring three other people before authorities tranquilized the animal.

Neighbors in Gauhati said the big cat attacked a 50-year-old lawyer as he talked on his cell phone Sunday evening outside his house. He was rushed to hospital where he died.

Chinese entrepreneur An Yanshi is convinced he has found the key ingredient to produce the world's most expensive tea -- panda poo.

The former calligraphy teacher has purchased 11 tons of excrement from a panda breeding center to fertilize a tea crop in the mountains of Sichuan province in southwestern China, home to the black and white bears.

An Australian tourist bungee jumping in Africa plunged 365 feet (111 meters) into a river when her cord snapped, but she managed to swim to safety with a broken collarbone and her legs tied together.

Erin Langworthy told Nine Network television news Sunday that she blacked out briefly when she hit the Zambesi River on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe on Dec. 31.

An Australian family spoke of their fright Sunday after waking to find a 1.7 meter (five-foot seven-inch) crocodile lurking in their living room.

Jo Dodd said she was first alerted to the reptilian intruder by the frantic barking of their family dog on Saturday morning.

A group of employees at a California school district who won a $12 million lotto prize last year has done it again and now stands to collect another pot worth more than a quarter of a million dollars.

State lottery officials announced Friday that the same Montebello Unified School District workers who won $12 million last February have won a MEGA Millions prize worth $262,743.

Eleven inmates in north Iraq dug an 80-meter underground tunnel without the authorities' knowledge and escaped to freedom on Saturday, the "surprised" prison's governor said.

The prisoners, who were serving a variety of sentences from five years in jail to death for crimes ranging from drug offences to murder, had not yet been recaptured but an inquiry has been launched, he said.

Republican presidential candidates in a debate Friday flubbed answers, made racist, homophobic outbursts and generally embarrassed themselves -- well, at least in a Yahoo! online spoof.

Even in the wild and unpredictable Republican primary season, things haven't got quite as wild as in the mock debate presented by Yahoo! and the Funny or Die comedy channel.

Cheeseburger and fries, hold the politicians.

With Republican presidential hopefuls blitzing New Hampshire ahead of its critical January 10 primary, one small eatery in coastal Portsmouth has had it with gladhanding campaigners disrupting diners.