An Italian fisherman has recovered his boat after it escaped from its moorings and drifted 700 kilometers (435 miles) to the coast of southern France, the French coast guard said on Friday.

The Dany, a 4.6-meter (15-foot) fishing boat, went missing in bad weather in October from Vernazza in northwestern Italy.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti made fun of his sober image on Thursday, quipping that he was not a robot and had appreciated a German newspaper's description of him as "the ideal son-in-law."

"I am the ideal son-in-law because I don't talk much, I dress in a serious and banal way and I don't make much noise," Monti told reporters at an end-of-year press conference.

Fridges might fly and beds fall from the sky as residents in Johannesburg's Hillbrow district see in the New Year by throwing broken furniture on to the streets below.

South Africa's police will send in helicopters, armored vehicles and special units Saturday night to patrol the unruly area, which has earned a reputation as a trouble spot at the turn of the year.

Sports towels and fleece blankets. A poker tournament. A $1 million Christmas display. A prom for senior citizens. BP gas card giveaways. A "most deserving mom" contest. And advertising, lots of advertising.

Florida Panhandle officials made the mix of eyebrow-raising purchases with $30 million BP gave them earlier this year to help tourism recover from 2010's disastrous Gulf oil spill.

An Australian infant was attacked by a python which wrapped itself around his body and attempted to suffocate him, his terrified mother said Thursday, recalling his "blood-curdling scream".

The two-year-old boy was chasing a ball around his Port Douglas backyard in Australia's tropical north when the snake struck, biting his leg before looping itself around his body, his mother told the local Cairns Post newspaper.

A Japanese department store is offering anyone with a quarter of a million dollars a lucky dip bag stuffed with expensive jewelry to ring in the New Year.

One lucky customer prepared to hand over a numerically significant 20.12 million yen ($259,000) can celebrate the turn of the year with a fistful of precious baubles.

Police have discovered a huge stash of contraband caviar stored in a hospital morgue freezer alongside dead bodies in Russia's second city of Saint Petersburg, officials said Thursday.

Kept in large canisters marked "Aviation Security. Inspected," the stash of both red and black caviar weighed 175 kilograms (385 pounds) -- a haul that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (euros) on the open market.

A bag of presents stolen from a Father Christmas in Rome has been returned with an apologetic note from the thieves after the victim made an impassioned appeal, Il Messaggero daily reported on Thursday.

"We're sorry. We made a mistake. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!" read the scrawled note left by the bag with 1,000 euros ($1,300) worth of presents that were stolen on Christmas Eve but were found still in their wrapping.

A man drove to a German police station to ask to get back his licence which he had lost for drink driving but was immediately arrested for a blood-alcohol level far above the legal limit, police said Wednesday.

The 47-year-old rolled up in his car to the police headquarters in the eastern town of Plauen on Tuesday, just after the three-day Christmas holiday and days ahead of New Year festivities.

It may not be the most conventional way of tackling crime, but an English city council has claimed success after using pig dung to eject teenagers from a woodland they used to drink and take drugs.

Elderly residents of Middlesbrough, northeast England, had complained to the police that young people were smoking cannabis and drinking alcohol in a woodland area near the Coulby Newham housing estate.