Brewed illicitly by generations of villagers in ex-Soviet Belarus, a legal version of the country's notoriously fiery samogon moonshine has now gone into mass production. 

Traditionally drunk with pickles and pig fat, the makers promise the new liquor will have the drink's authentic kick and taste.

World number one Novak Djokovic was unnerved by the smell of marijuana smoke on Saturday as he advanced to the final of the ATP Rogers Cup by defeating France's Jeremy Chardy.

During his 6-4, 6-4 victory, Djokovic complained to the umpire about the smell of marijuana smoke.

Plump passengers beware! The national airline of Uzbekistan says it has begun weighing those traveling along with their carry-on luggage. 

The isolated Central Asian state's carrier said that it had introduced the new regulations out of concern for "flight safety".

A couple who took their nearly 5-foot boa constrictor for a swim in a Pennsylvania river say the pet slipped away and they're concerned about its welfare.

The Bloomsburg Press Enterprise reported Thursday (http://bit.ly/1JfL8XN ) that Kolby and Zachary Latranyi had been swimming with the snake named Leyla last weekend in the Susquehanna (suhs-kwuh-HAN'-uh) River. The Latranyis say the red-tailed boa was shedding, so the swim was designed to help it remove material from its scales.

Authorities want to talk to a man who donned a fairly realistic bear costume — head and all — and wore it when harassing a bear and two sows trying to feed on pink salmon in an Alaska river.

The incident happened Monday on the Chilkoot River near Haines, said Alaska Fish and Game Assistant Area Management Biologist Mark Sogge.

Japanese police have arrested a man accused of bursting into a lawyer's office and cutting off his penis with garden shears before flushing the organ down a toilet.

Local media reports said Ikki Kodukai, a 24-year-old Tokyo graduate student, may have been acting out of revenge over his wife's romantic involvement with the 42-year-old victim.

Once upon a time before the Internet, pornography fans collected magazines. Now a London firm is helping people whose dead relatives leave collections behind to get rid of them -- discreetly, of course.

Say your father has died and you find his pornography collection hidden in a cupboard. Too embarrassed to tell your mother or put it out with the trash? Try calling Webuyanyporn, founded nine months ago to deal with such awkward situations.

A couple in Seattle whose 8-year-old daughter feeds crows and pigeons is being sued by neighbors who say the birds have damaged their property.

Seattlepi.com ( http://bit.ly/1DJ5iHi ) reports the lawsuit filed Monday in King County Superior Court seeks more than $200,000 for damages as well as a court order limiting Lisa and Gary Mann and their daughter to setting out at most one-quarter pound of animal food each day.

Los Angeles has been blackballed.

The city has completed a program of covering open-air reservoirs with floating "shade balls" to protect water quality.

McDonald's France was forced to apologize Wednesday following the emergence of an internal note reportedly ordering staff not to hand out food to "tramps" at a restaurant on the swish Cote d'Azur.

The note was revealed on Twitter by consumer group "60 Million Consumers".