South Korean carrier Asiana Airlines said Wednesday it was taking legal action to resolve a dispute with a pilot who was grounded for refusing to shave off his beard.

The row came to a head in September last year when the unnamed pilot was suspended with pay for 29 days after ignoring an order from a company executive to remove his beard.

Some 5,000 foodies and fashionistas gathered late Tuesday on the banks of the Hudson River in New York for the fifth edition of the "Diner en blanc" (Dinner in White).

Organizers of the pop-up picnic where attendees dress to the nines entirely in white chose the huge Pier 26 structure this time in the hip Tribeca neighborhood.

Ever more Chinese women are embracing the "facekini" to protect them from the sun and the threat of a tan on a trip to the beach.

Pale white skin is highly-valued in China, where a darker complexion is associated more with poor rural women, who often labor for long hours in the sun.

It may not be considered a landmark birthday for humans, but turning 37 on Tuesday made Hong Kong's Jia Jia the oldest-ever giant panda in captivity, and she celebrated in style.

The equivalent of more than 100 years old in human terms, Jia Jia was presented with a towering birthday cake made from ice and fruit juice with the number 37 carved on top in her enclosure at the city's Ocean Park theme park.

A British vicar who went on the run after pocketing more than £24,000 ($37,400, 33,700 euros) in fees for weddings and funerals handed himself in to police on Monday following appeals from senior clergy.

Simon Reynolds disappeared during a lunch break in the court proceedings against him in Sheffield in northern England last Thursday, shortly before being found guilty of four counts of theft.

A man who allegedly traveled around Arizona pretending to be a hair dresser so he could take sexually explicit photos of his clients has been apprehended.

The U.S. Marshals Service says a task force arrested 53-year-old James Hickey on Friday while he was bike-riding in Flagstaff.

A Boulder County sheriff's deputy got into a face-off with an owl with an attitude, and the owl won.

Deputy Sophie Berman came across the raptor on a dirt road on Tuesday as Berman patrolled an area near a campground west of Boulder.

A senior member of Britain's House of Lords responsible for upholding standards was facing calls to quit the chamber Monday after he was filmed allegedly snorting drugs off a prostitute's breasts.

Lord John Sewel resigned as deputy speaker of parliament's upper house after a sting in The Sun newspaper on Sunday but remains under pressure to stand down from the chamber altogether.

A white-bearded Florida man has won the "Papa" Hemingway Look-Alike Contest on his 15th attempt.

Retired air traffic controller Charlie Boice of Palm Beach Gardens prevailed Saturday night at Sloppy Joe's Bar, a hangout of Ernest Hemingway during his Key West residency in the 1930s.

A batch of Kenyan newborn babies have been named in honor of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to the country -- with some mothers evidently hoping their offspring will be future high-fliers.

Already there are numerous young Barack Obamas living in Kogelo, the president's ancestral village, but soon after Obama touched down on Friday night two mothers in the western city of Kisumu took the unusual decision to name their sons after the president's jet, Air Force One.