New Yorkers gave a big sendoff to "Queen of Soul Food" Sylvia Woods, whose famed Harlem restaurant served everybody from Muhammad Ali to Bill Clinton, ahead of her burial Wednesday.

Mourners flocked to a historic African American church in Harlem where Woods, who died last week at 86, lay in an open coffin Tuesday, surrounded by white roses.

Barack Obama can't stand beetroot, artichokes are off the menu at France's presidential palace and Vladimir Putin does not take any chances with dishes that emerge from the Kremlin kitchens.

Those were just a few of the culinary titbits to emerge from the latest reunion of the select club of chefs who ply their trade on behalf of some of the most powerful men and women on the planet.

A radio signal being transmitted out of a submarine base is likely behind reports of garage doors mysteriously failing to open and close in southeastern Connecticut, the U.S. Navy said Monday.

The signal is part of the Enterprise Land Mobile Radio system, which is used by the military to coordinate responses with civil emergency workers, said Chris Zendan, a spokesman for submarine base in Groton.

Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom has launched an online song attacking U.S. President Barack Obama and urging supporters not to vote for the U.S. leader, who he accuses of trampling on Internet freedom.

In a song titled "Mr. President" released on YouTube, the self-styled cyber freedom fighter, who allegedly masterminded a massive online piracy business, compares himself to U.S. civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King.

A raffle will determine which civil servants in a small Argentine town will receive their pay first, due to insufficient funds, its mayor announced Monday.

"We will draw lots to decide the (order) of payment," said mayor of Bialet Masse, Gustavo Pueyo, in a broadcast from Buenos Aires private radio station Radio Mitre.

A German pensioner got more than she bargained for when she lifted up her toilet seat to find a meter-long (three-foot-long) python staring up at her, police said on Monday.

The 74-year-old from Schwanstetten in southern Germany immediately called the police, who attempted to flush the serpent from its hiding place.

Latvian flag-carrier airBaltic on Monday announced plans to offer castles in the air by selling real estate to passengers as they fly.

Interested travellers can buy a voucher for 30 euros ($36), which the airline says will save them up to 9,500 euros when they sign on the dotted line for a real estate purchase with a partner broker.

Finding it hard to keep up the passion in a long-distance relationship? Help might be on the way.

A robotics professor in Singapore has invented a gadget equipped with motion-sensitive electronic "lips" that allow amorous but absent couples to exchange long-distance smooches via the Internet.

Shoppers at a Sears department store in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania were evacuated after an unwanted guest -- a young female bear -- wandered in over the weekend, local media said.

The animal became trapped Saturday night after entering the Sears store in the Pittsburgh Mills mall, located northeast of the city of Pittsburgh, through the automatic doors, the reports said.

An online fundraiser for a New York grandmother whose harassment at the hands of a busload of schoolchildren was captured on video raised more than $700,000 in a month.

Bus monitor Karen Klein, 68, was ridiculed by a group of 12- and 13-year-olds about her weight, hearing aid and hairdo in a cell phone video posted to Facebook and YouTube last month.