Police have arrested an 85-year-old man in western Japan for allegedly stalking an 80-year-old woman he reportedly met when she shared a hospital room with his now-dead wife, they said Monday.

Takeo Nitta from Hashimoto, Wakayama prefecture, allegedly left several telephone messages on the woman's answerphone in November, saying: "I'm waiting outside your house. Let's go out."

A Mojito spaghetti special triumphed at the pasta world championships on Friday, as a chef from Switzerland snatched the top prize from rivals of Shanghai, South Africa and Malta.

Luca Torricelli, chef at the "Argentino" in the Swiss city of Lugano won the third edition of the championships in Parma, Italy, with his dish "Sicily prawns spaghetti with Mojito".

Police say a Connecticut woman became concerned when she heard someone calling "Daddy" repeatedly near a school. But when she began looking for a child, she instead found a large green parrot up in a tree.

Fairfield police Lt. James Perez says the fire department used a long pole to remove the bird from the tree at Holland Hill School on Thursday. The parrot then flew onto a bamboo stand. Firefighters chased it out and an animal control officer caught it in a net and brought it to a shelter.

A Canadian man is suing a Montreal area hospital over a botched surgery that left his penis one inch shorter, claiming it ruined his sex life and his marriage, media said Friday.

The man, whose identity was withheld by Sun Media, told the newspaper chain he had been rushed to hospital in 2011 with a fractured appendage. The injury was sustained while having sex with his wife.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon blew out 70 candles on a cake made from coca flour as he celebrated his birthday Friday in a Bolivian indigenous community, on the eve of a G77 leaders summit.

Wearing a straw hat, a necklace of flowers and a big grin, Ban joined in a folk dance with men and women from the Santa Rita community in Bolivia's eastern Concepcion region.

He recently renewed his Argentine passport and remains an official card-carrying member of his favorite Buenos Aires football club. But Pope Francis has pledged absolute neutrality for the World Cup.

Francis recalled during an interview published Friday with the Barcelona newspaper "La Vanguardia," that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff had asked him during a February visit to the Vatican to at least be neutral during the competition.

Residents in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata are being asked to paint their homes blue and white -- the favorite colors of their feisty chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

For those reluctant, the city's government is offering a lucrative incentive -- a 12-month waiver on their property taxes.

Pastafarianism, a movement set up partly to ridicule organised religion, has failed to win official recognition from Austria's religious authority.

The Kultusamt authority ruled Wednesday that the "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" was not a proper "Church" because it is not a Christian religious community.

The owner of a vacant luxury house teetering on a crumbling 75-foot cliff over a Central Texas lake has decided to burn the house and clear the lot of the debris.

Tom Hemrick, Hill County's emergency management coordinator, said Thursday the house would be burned Friday morning. Then a long-reach excavator will be used to clear the debris before the foundation slab is removed.

More than 300 Chinese space enthusiasts have booked tickets costing nearly $100,000 for a five minute trip to outer space, official media reported Friday.

The 305 buyers snapped up tickets for a trip with Dutch firm Space Expedition Corp (SXC) when they went on sale on Taobao, an online retail website, the state-run China Daily reported.