Jordan's elections commission on Wednesday approved an electoral list that was initially forbidden from registering under the name "Saddam Hussein," after the group agreed to change its title, state media said.

"The list has been accepted after it changed its name to the 'Nation's Honour.' Now we have 61 approved lists" for legislative elections this month, commission spokesman Hussein Bani Hani told the official news agency Petra.

Water, water everywhere -- just not in plastic bottles, says a town in the U.S. state of Massachusetts.

A law passed by the town of Concord went into effect with the New Year, making single-serving bottles of water illegal.

Japanese trucker Toshifumi Fujimoto is bored with his humdrum job, a daily run from Osaka to Tokyo or Nagasaki hauling tanker loads of gasoline, water or even chocolate.

Yet while the stocky, bearded 45-year-old could spend his free time getting a jolt of adrenaline by bungee-jumping or shark hunting, he puts his life on the line in a most unusual way.

Twin sisters in Ohio gave birth to two baby boys two hours apart on New Year's Eve, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

Identical twins Aimee and Ashlee Nelson, 19, used to dress alike as young girls and both got pregnant about the same time, the Akron Beacon Herald reported.

India's communications minister, already a poet in his spare time, has found another outlet for his creative ambitions: penning a slushy love song for a new Bollywood film.

Despite his challenging role as a minister and government troubleshooter, Kapil Sibal took up an offer by actor-director Aditya Om for the film "Bandook" (Gun) and wrote four songs, one of which made it into the movie.

An Afghan prisoner murdered his wife during a conjugal visit, allegedly because she had been unfaithful after he was jailed for killing her relatives, police said Wednesday.

Din Mohammad was sentenced to 20 years in prison two years ago for killing his mother-in-law, and his wife's brother and sister in the northern province of Samangan.

A record 40,000 people braved icy temperatures on the Netherlands's North Sea coast Tuesday to take a cold plunge, setting a new record for the traditional New Year's Day dip, organizers said.

"There were around 10,000 swimmers in Scheveningen and a record number of 40,000 across the Netherlands," spokeswoman Jiske Barten said.

A shy New York woman whom no one took to be wealthy left a shockingly happy surprise when she died: $20 million in donations to the city's libraries and main park.

Mary McConnell Bailey lived modestly and volunteered at a hospital and schools, before dying at 88 last year, the New York Post newspaper reported Tuesday.

With reggae music pumping and disco lights flashing, members of a Colorado recreational pot club lit up in celebration of the new year — and a new place to smoke legally.

Club 24 in Denver was one of two Colorado clubs that were believed to be the first legal pot dens in the nation. It opened at 4:20 p.m. Monday, with some 200 people paying $29.99 to join the bring-your-own pot club.

Spoiler alert: This story contains words and phrases that some people want to ban from the English language. "Spoiler alert" is among them. So are "kick the can down the road," ''trending" and "bucket list."

All are on the 38th annual List of Words to be Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness. The nonbinding, tongue-in-cheek decree released Monday by northern Michigan's Lake Superior State University is based on nominations submitted from the United States, Canada and beyond.