Young Chinese women in swishy dresses and strappy sandals sit in a row clutching forms that list their weight and measurements as they wait for an interview with the "appearance consultant".

Dressed as if for a beauty contest, they are among more than 1,000 bidding to make it to the next stage of this bizarre competition -- the chance to join an exclusive group of 50 vying for marriage to a multimillionaire.

Tens of thousands of revelers hurled 120 tons of squashed tomatoes at each other Wednesday, drenching the streets in red in a gigantic Spanish food fight known as the Tomatina.

A sea of more than 40,000 alcohol-soaked men and women packed into the Plaza Mayor square of Bunol, eastern Spain, many with their shirts off and wearing swimming goggles to keep out the stinging juice.

Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney took to the stage Tuesday and kissed wife Ann after she delivered a well-pitched convention speech that aimed to humanize her more awkward husband.

The moment was reminiscent of Al Gore's similar move after wife Tipper's convention speech in 2000 and was part of a carefully choreographed attempt to reintroduce Romney at this year's jamboree as a family guy with a heart.

Japan's best-known toilet maker on Wednesday unveiled a "poop-powered" motorcycle that can travel as far as 300 kilometers (180 miles) on a tank filled with animal waste.

Billed as the world's first waste-powered vehicle, the three-wheeler has a toilet in place of a regular seat and huge paper roll at the back.

An Australian woman who admitted killing her ex-lover and attempting to hack off his penis was jailed for three years and nine months Wednesday, with a court accepting she was suffering depression.

Jian Chen, 47, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of her former partner Jin Xiang Peng over his fatal sedation and stabbing in February 2011 amid a protracted and bitter dispute over money and their young son.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn may have disappeared from public life but his spectacular and sordid fall from grace is being played out again and again in books, plays, TV shows and movies.

The six-minute sexual encounter between the man who might have been France's next president and a maid in a swanky Manhattan hotel continues to fascinate long after the story fell off the front pages of newspapers.

A man dressed who was apparently trying to provoke reports of a Bigfoot sighting in northwestern Montana was struck by two cars and killed, authorities said.

The man was wearing a military-style "Ghillie suit" consisting of strips of camouflage fabric and was standing in the right-hand lane of a highway south of Kalispell on Sunday night when he was hit by the first car, according to the Montana Highway Patrol. A second car hit the man as he lay in the roadway, authorities said.

Three rare Australian coins including the most famous example of the nation's first coin the "Holey Dollar" have fetched Aus$880,000 (U.S. $911,000) at auction.

The coin known as the "Hannibal Head" Holey Dollar -- created in New South Wales state in 1813 from an 1810 Silver Dollar minted at the Lima Mint in Peru -- sold for Aus$410,000, an auction record for a coin of its type.

More than 200 people were bitten by dogs every day last year in India's commercial capital Mumbai, up 50 percent in four years due to a surging population of strays, a report said Monday.

The number of bites recorded since 2001 is 650,000, and last year's average of 221 a day up was up by 50 percent from 2007, according to data from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), published in the Mumbai Mirror.

Taiwan's environmental minister is calling on the island's men to sit down when they urinate in order to keep toilets clean, drawing a mixed reaction from the public.

Stephen Shen, head of the Environmental Protection Administration, said Monday he himself had adopted the habit, and suggested other men follow suit so toilet seats will be ready for the next user.