U.S. health officials closed down a spoof Starbucks coffee shop Monday shortly after a TV comic revealed himself as the man behind the stunt, which drew media attention and plenty of customers.

The "Dumb Starbucks" cropped up in a Los Angeles neighborhood on Friday adorned with the signature green logo and signage of the global coffee giant, except with the word "Dumb" sitting above it.

Russian speed skater Olga Graf showed off more than she wanted after a bronze medal-winning performance in the Olympic Games 3,000 meters, ripping down the zip of her skin suit in delight.

Graf, who won Russia's first medal of the Sochi Games, raised her arms aloft in triumph after crossing the finishing line and then pulled her zip down to her waist.

A Twitter account highlighting the myriad teething problems that have plagued the Winter Olympics has attracted 324,000 followers -- 120,000 more than the official Sochi account.

Describing itself, the @SochiProblems account says "I'm a mess, and not prepared for you! Our athletes live like Kings!"

A disposable organic sensor that can be embedded in a diaper and wirelessly let a carer know it needs changing was unveiled by Japanese researchers on Monday.

The flexible integrated circuit printed on a single plastic film transmits information and receives its power wirelessly, and could potentially be manufactured for a few yen (U.S. cents), the developers told Agence France Presse.

Women in Tokyo are threatening a sex boycott against any man who votes for the front-runner in this weekend's gubernatorial election, in protest at his claim that menstruation makes women unfit for government.

A Twitter campaign group based in the capital which bills itself as "The association of women who will not have sex with men who vote for (Yoichi) Masuzoe," has garnered almost 3,000 followers since it launched last week.

Gasping and shivering, entrepreneurs from 26 Finnish startups jumped into near zero-temperature water Friday in one of the most unusual pitches ever for funding.

Wearing just swimsuits and beanies, the participants in the first-ever Polar Bear Pitching in the northwestern city of Oulu took turns in a hole dug into the iced-over Oulujoki river, explaining their business plans with clattering teeth.

Russian television chief Konstantin Ernst admitted that TV pictures of the Olympic rings glitch at Friday's opening ceremony were doctored but that it was an open secret.

The ceremony, beamed to an estimated TV audience of two billion, got off to a rocky start when one of five illuminated snowflakes suspended above the Fisht stadium and that were supposed to morph into the five Olympic rings failed to materialise.

Four decades after the Vietnam war ended, US fast-food giant McDonald's opened its first restaurant in the communist country Saturday, aiming to lure a rising middle class away from rice and noodles.

The arrival of one of the most potent symbols of US capitalism in southern Ho Chi Minh City -- known as Saigon when American troops dramatically withdrew in 1975 -- is the result of a partnership with the son-in-law of Vietnam's powerful Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

U.S. Olympians will have to make do without the team's official yogurt — depriving them of a source of protein and potentially disturbing their daily routines as they prepare for the biggest competition of their lives.

Some 5,000 cups of Greek yogurt from Team USA sponsor Chobani isn't getting to Sochi because of a customs dispute with Russia.

Staff at a Japanese zoo chased a keeper in a gorilla costume on Thursday as part of an annual escape drill to brush up their skills in the event of a real breakout.

Visitors to Ueno Zoo in Tokyo watched as the pretend primate was coralled by dozens of staff wielding nets, before being subdued with a mock stun gun and bundled onto a nearby pick-up truck.