A bronze buttock from the statue of late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein toppled in Baghdad after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 is to be auctioned in Britain, an auction house said Tuesday.

A former soldier from Britain's elite SAS regiment retrieved the two-foot (0.6-meter) wide piece of history and took it back to Britain shortly after U.S. marines dragged the statue down on live television.

An Australian nurse suffered brain damage and kidney failure after drinking a cocktail called jungle juice on the Indonesian holiday island of Lombok, a report said on Wednesday.

Jamie Johnston, 25, was flown to the Royal Darwin Hospital from Bali in a coma after ordering a jug of arak -- a rice wine popular throughout Southeast Asia -- mixed with fruit juice to share with her mother.

A cash-strapped Spanish town has surprised its residents by asking them to pick up a broom and sweep their own streets and pavements.

The official request by the mayor of Esparreguera, a town of 22,000 people in northeastern Spain's Catalonia region, did not go down well with all inhabitants.

When it comes to socks, one is more likely to find a French or Swiss man wearing a smelly pair than a German or a Brit.

A study by Swiss firm Blacksocks found that only 66 percent of Frenchmen changed their socks daily, while just seven in ten Swiss men put on a clean pair every day.

Amber Miller says she felt contractions minutes after crossing the Chicago Marathon finish line.

A few hours after completing the 26.2-mile (42-kilometer) race Sunday, the suburban Chicago woman gave birth to her daughter, June.

A Russian region in Siberia on Monday confidently proclaimed that its mountains are home to yetis after finding "indisputable proof" of the existence of the hairy beasts in an expedition.

The local administration of the Kemerovo region in the south of Siberia said in a statement on its website that footprints and possibly even hair samples belonging to the yeti were found on the research trip to its remote mountains.

A Philippine man obsessed with Superman has gone under the knife in a bizarre attempt to transform himself into his comic book hero, a report said Monday.

Herbert Chavez, 35, has had plastic surgery repeatedly over the past 16 years to get Superman's famous cleft chin and defined nose, according to ABS-CBN television.

One of China's tallest buildings has opened for business in the nation's 'wealthiest village' of Huaxi, a symbol of the country's breakneck economic growth, officials and state press said Monday.

The Longxi International Hotel is 328 meters (1,082-feet) high and cost $470 million to build, an official in Huaxi told Agence France Presse.

A woman who claimed to be a psychic persuaded a 12-year-old girl to steal jewelry from her family and throw it into a cauldron to lift a curse and appease evil spirits, authorities said Friday.

Jackeline Lopez, 42, of Palmdale was arrested last month for investigation of extortion. She has since posted bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 18.

Nestle Purina PetCare is releasing what it says is the first television commercial designed to appeal to dogs.

The company told the St. Joseph News-Press that animal behavior experts at the Nestle Purina Product Technology Center in St. Joseph, Missouri, helped it develop the commercial aimed at selling Beneful dog food.