A handful of grimy New York pay phones will be reincarnated as touch-screen pads with online access to neighborhood information, the mayor's office said Monday.

A pilot program starts next month that will see 250 phone booths converted to house 32-inch (81 cm) screens, instead of phones, across the city.

Philippine and Vietnamese troops plan to hold joint "fun games" in the Spratlys to calm tensions over the disputed island chain in the South China Sea, the Philippine navy chief said Tuesday.

The islands, also claimed by China, are regarded as one of Asia's most dangerous potential flashpoints but there will be no weapons involved, said Vice Admiral Alexander Pama.

He's on the lam, but Travis A. Nicolaysen still had time to update his Facebook page.

The 26-year-old has eluded authorities since two foot chases Wednesday and a dragnet that included a police dog tracking him through a Port Angeles neighborhood.

An artist is welcoming tourists to his Dublin home -- made from 1.4 billion euros ($1.8 billion) of shredded bank notes -- to stimulate debate about Ireland's ailing economy, he told Agence France Presse on Monday.

Frank Buckley built the three-roomed apartment-cum-gallery over three months, from bricks made of mulched, decommissioned notes provided by Ireland's Central Bank.

A jealous Taiwanese husband led an assault on a Facebook user who had flirted with his wife online, beating him to death with baseball clubs, police said Monday.

Chou You-huang, a 34-year-old resident of south Taiwan's Pingtung County, told police that he had requested a meeting with the 40-year-old victim, Chuang Shih-Chang, after he found out about the online relationship.

It was a bad week for plenty of beachgoers in Nicaragua and a slightly better week for jellyfish, which stung at least 855 bathers who hit the beach on Holy Week break, authorities said.

The vacationers were treated for jellyfish stings on Nicaragua's Pacific coast, most of them at the crowded beaches of Jiquilillo, Masachapa and Pochomil, the local Red Cross said.

Are you lonely? Do you miss a loved one? Is your marriage on the rocks? Just place a call to a Stockholm opera and a singer will make a house call with an aria specially chosen to fit your state of mind.

"I've had the experience of singing for a couple who had lost touch with each other a bit," said soprano Henriikka Groendahl.

Tucked deep beneath the Kansas prairie, luxury condos are being built into the shaft of an abandoned missile silo to service anxious -- and wealthy -- people preparing for doomsday.

So far, four buyers have plopped down a total of about $7 million for havens to flee to when disaster happens or the end is nigh. And developer Larry Hall has options to retro-fit three more Cold War-era silos when this one fills up.

U.S. baseball frenzy inspired a Southern California newspaper to field scores of reporters as part of a "news mob" to cover the Los Angeles Angels opening season game on Friday.

Sports fervor among fans of the local team is so high that the Orange County Register decided to blitz the first home game with more than 100 reporters, editors, photographers, fans, and members of every department at the newspaper.

Turkmenistan's authoritarian leader has proven he doesn't only win elections easily, coming first in a car race he wasn't even supposed to take part in.

President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov drove to the racing track in a Bugatti sports car Saturday morning ostensibly to give his blessing to the former Soviet Central Asian nation's maiden automotive competition.