The interior ministry in war-torn Syria is advertising for musicians to join the police band, state news agency SANA said Tuesday.

"Citizens who know how to play an instrument and have completed their education to age 16 can audition to join the police band," said a statement.

When Vernon Maynard's friends asked him what he wished he had done in his 100 years of life, the Southern California man said he had always wanted to jump from a plane with a parachute.

The retired car dealer got the chance to mark his centenarian birthday Monday by doing just that.

Lying on a massage table at a spa in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, Feri Tilukay closed his eyes and smiled blissfully as three enormous snakes slithered all over him.

He is one of a small band of customers brave enough to try the "snake massage", where the gentle hands of a professionally trained masseuse are swapped for the cold, scaly skin of six-foot (1.8-meter) pythons.

Dodgy Malaysian "spas" are dispensing with the massage oil in favor of cream cheese in a kinky new offering in the country's bustling erotic massage industry, a report said.

The weekend edition of the Malay-language Harian Metro said reporters from the tabloid discovered that some spas near the capital Kuala Lumpur were offering customers the option of being smeared with cream cheese.

A small alligator found under an escalator at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has left authorities puzzled.

A maintenance worker discovered the alligator, which is about a foot (30 centimeters) long, on Friday in Terminal 3, Chicago Police spokesman Jose Estrada said Sunday.

Thieves disguised as zombies and mummies got into the Day of the Dead spirit in Mexico, robbing goods worth $77,000 from a jewelry store in the capital, authorities said Sunday.

"Five individuals wearing zombie, mummy, Chucky and clown costumes, overnight Saturday broke into the shop and using small and larger weapons, subdued employees," the public safety office said in a statement.

A man in the U.S. state of Ohio got into the Halloween spirit by crafting a clever marriage proposal for his girlfriend.

Zach Stoddard of Dayton used five carved pumpkins strategically placed on the side of a hill to pop the question to his girlfriend of three years, Lauren Brenneman. When the illuminated pumpkins were uncovered, they showed the words "Will You Marry Me?"

Fed up with the overpowering stench of urine in Libreville's streets, artist Regis Divassa decided to take action -- by spray-painting over soiled walls in a bid to get the Gabonese capital's residents to keep their city clean.

"Gabonese men have a great habit, once they drink too much, they spray the walls," said the 34-year-old artist.

A man wearing a full Nazi uniform was ejected from a British supermarket and the police were called after complaints by fellow shoppers, the store said on Friday.

The man, wearing a black SS officer's uniform complete with a cap and a red armband, left before police could arrive at the shop in Cambridge, eastern England, on Thursday.

Just six people managed enrol in Obamacare on day one of the health plan's troubled rollout, documents released by Republican lawmakers showed, in a new embarrassment for the White House.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa released a document from a meeting on October 2, the day after HealthCare.gov went online, recording the paltry figure.