Helsinki's streets are festive with vibrant Christmas decorations and bright advertisements tout the season's must-have gifts as shoppers bustle through packed stores, yet something is amiss: there's no snow.

The absence of white stuff has not only left Christmas revelers gloomy, it has affected businesses ranging from ski resorts to retailers and of course, snow removal companies.

The world's richest lottery showered a 2.5-billion-euro ($3.3 billion) bonanza of prizes on crisis-hit Spaniards in an annual draw of "El Gordo" or "The Fat One" on Thursday.

The jackpot went to number 58268, which is split into a total of 1,800 "decimo" tickets each paying out 400,000 euros. Thousands of other tickets offered smaller winnings.

Illegal New Year fireworks on sale in Naples are taking inspiration from the debt crisis this year, with the most powerful ones named after sovereign bond spreads and Italy's new prime minister, Mario Monti.

A court has ordered the arrest of two self-described witches on blackmail and extortion charges in a high-profile case involving a TV star and, reportedly, other public figures.

The Bucharest Appeals Court ruled Wednesday that Rada Minca and Roxana Lider should be arrested for 29 days pending trial.

A truck driver who won a Lamborghini worth about $300,000 in a convenience store contest crashed the sports car six hours after he got it, and he now plans to sell the 640-horsepower convertible because he can't afford the insurance or taxes.

"I already had offers on it. I'm going to sell it," David Dopp said Wednesday. "I have bills more important than a Lamborghini. I've got a family to support."

Who says plane travel can't be fun?

Flight attendants for a low-cost Philippine airline who gained fame by dancing through safety demonstrations are back swaying through the aisles.

A large metallic ball fell out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting baffled authorities to contact NASA and the European space agency.

The hollow ball with a circumference of 1.1 meters (43 inches) was found near a village in the north of the country some 750 kilometers (480 miles) from the capital Windhoek, according to police forensics director Paul Ludik.

A Dutch broadcaster — renowned for testing the limits of good taste and the law — says it will air a segment in which two presenters engage in cannibalism by eating a small chunk of one another's fried flesh.

A BNN spokesman said Tuesday the men had each had a small piece of tissue surgically removed for the stunt — one from his side and the other from his buttocks.

New York's mayor celebrated record tourist numbers Friday by awarding the city's 50 millionth visitor this year a symbolic golden ticket -- and some serious cash prizes -- in Times Square.

Newlyweds Craig and Lucy Johnson family from Britain were feted as Mayor Michael Bloomberg touted the Big Apple's success in breaking the 50 million number ahead of a self-imposed deadline of 2012.

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