Peruvians on Saturday downed their national cocktail, the pisco sour, with a nationwide celebration of sipping and dancing -- even opening a museum in its honor.

The cocktail, made from a grape-based liquor called pisco, has been made in Peru since the 16th century. Added to it are a squirt or two of fresh lemon juice, sugar, egg white and crushed ice.

It's official, at least according to America's most celebrated groundhog: spring is around the corner.

In an annual ritual with early roots in German folklore and rather more in U.S. media-showbiz, a Pennsylvania groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil was interpreted Saturday as predicting an early end to winter.

Malaysians smeared with fake blood roamed a jungle range on the outskirts of the capital Kuala Lumpur Saturday in the Southeast Asian's country's first "zombie run".

One woman had an arrow in her hair made to look as if had pierced her skull while many others were wearing blood-smeared and torn t-shirts.

A man alleged to be one of Corsica's most notorious gangsters was behind bars on Friday after being arrested by chance thanks to a thief plying his trade on one of the poshest streets in Paris.

The 40-year-old, widely known as Rachid the Corsican, had parked his car on the Rue du Faubourg St Honore, famous for its designer boutiques and just up the road from President Francois Hollande's Elysee Palace.

A Russian judge has been fired after he caught 40 winks in court and then sentenced an outraged defendant to five years in prison.

Judge Yevgeny Makhno of Blagoveshchensk City Court in Russia's Far East was forced to resign Friday for obviously falling asleep several times while trying a businessman on charges of fraud.

Queen Elizabeth II dutifully sits through endless hours of displays of military pomp rehearsed to the second -- and secretly loves it when everything goes wrong, Britain's pageant master said Saturday.

Major Sir Michael Parker, who has spent 46 years producing grand events, told The Daily Telegraph newspaper that the sovereign is most amused when showpiece spectacles descend into calamity.

Vienna's Leopold Museum said Friday that visitors are welcome to strip off at a special nudist night later this month and admire its popular "Nude Men" exhibition as nature intended.

"As there were several requests from nudist associations we decided to give this opportunity to all lovers of the Freikoerperkultur, the Free Body Culture," spokesman Klaus Pokorny told Agence France Presse.

More than 12,500 people have petitioned U.S. President Barack Obama to help Hong Kong avoid a baby formula shortage, saying infants in the city are facing malnutrition due to mainland Chinese "smugglers".

Formula is popular with mainlanders because of concerns about the safety of food processed in China following a series of scandals, notably in 2008 when six babies died from drinking milk tainted with the chemical melamine.

Serbia Prime Minister Ivica Dacic vowed an investigation Thursday after he was pranked by a Playboy model without underwear who posed as an interviewer and uncrossed her legs in a "Basic Instinct" skit.

"This will not go unpunished and the whole case will be fully investigated," Dacic's security adviser Ivica Toncev told Serbian state television RTS.

In the run-up to Super Bowl Sunday, millions of American football fans can rest assured: there is no looming shortage of their beloved chicken wings.

The National Chicken Council estimates that the nation will wolf down 1.23 billion chicken wings over Super Bowl weekend, or nearly four wings for each and every American.