An Italian TV show managed to coax Pope Francis into handing over his white skull cap and has already raised over 100,000 euros in less than 24 hours by putting it on eBay.

The host of satirical show "Le Iene" (The Hyenas) got up at the crack of dawn to ensure he had a front row position for one of the pope's regular appearances in St Peter's Square in Vatican City.

There's some truth to the effectiveness of folk remedies and old wives' tales when it comes to serious medical issues, according to findings by a team from Detroit Medical Center.

Dr. Sonal Saraiya and her colleagues in Michigan found that packing strips of cured pork in the nose of a child who suffers from uncontrollable, life-threatening nosebleeds can stop the hemorrhaging, a discovery that won them a 2014 Ig Nobel prize, the annual award for sometimes inane, yet often surprisingly practical, scientific discoveries.

A Michigan man is apologizing for trying to throw a football loaded with drugs and cellphones into a state prison yard.

Christen D. Moore on Wednesday called the June attempt "a thoughtless and immature decision." The Jackson Citizen Patriot reports (http://bit.ly/1qYsTLj ) the 22-year-old's comments came during his sentencing hearing, where he got 17 to 60 months on two counts of furnishing contraband to a prisoner.

Police in Philadelphia say a man used a banana he swiped from a convenience store counter to simulate a gun while he robbed the place.

Police on Wednesday posted surveillance video (http://bit.ly/1thASUL ) of the holdup reported in the East Parkside neighborhood.

Want to discover Rome and keep fit in the process? Jogger guides in the eternal city are taking tourists from around the world on a trot from the Colosseum to the Vatican.

For those worried what all those pizzas and ice-creams are doing to their waistline, taking to the streets of the historic center at dawn not only lets visitors stay trim but gives them an experience of Italy's capital when the tourist crowds are still tucked up in bed.

A disgruntled taxpayer in southern France paid her annual bill using 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of small change in protest at the way taxes are collected.

The unemployed 28-year-old woman, who gave her name only as Audrey D., had to pay 1,107 euros ($1,435) in tax on her 2013 salary, which was on average 1,400 euros.

Miss Uganda organizers have unveiled a major rebranding of the annual beauty pageant, trading the glamour of the catwalk for an army-sponsored agricultural boot camp.

This year's crop of 20 finalists will swap perfecting their strut under stage lights for a stint at farming poultry and cattle as well as lessons in packaging farm produce, before the overall winner is crowned on October 25.

The Vatican was left red-faced Tuesday after it emerged that a car bearing its diplomatic plates had been stopped in France with four kilograms of cocaine on board.

The car -- which also contained 200 grams (seven ounces) of cannabis -- belonged to 91-year-old Argentinian cardinal Jorge Mejia, emeritus librarian at the Holy See, who retired in 2003 and who is currently bedridden.

A traffic cop in Austria got more than he bargained for after a booby trap covered him head-to-toe in manure as he was trying to catch people speeding, police said on Tuesday.

A bucket containing the slurry exploded three meters (yards) from the officer after he triggered a trip wire at a site often used for speed traps, police in the southern state of Carinthia said.

It was a calm morning in Antarctica's remote Ross Sea, during the season when the sun never sets, when Capt. John Bennett and his crew hauled up a creature with tentacles like fire hoses and eyes like dinner plates from a mile below the surface.

A colossal squid: 350 kilograms (770 pounds), as long as a minibus and one of the sea's most elusive species. It had been frozen for eight months until Tuesday, when scientists in New Zealand got a long-anticipated chance to thaw out the animal and inspect it — once they used a forklift to maneuver it into a tank.