A desperate man in Munich fled onto a balcony and called police for protection after his insatiable companion for a one-night stand refused to let him leave her flat, police said Thursday.

The 43-year-old man had met a woman four years his senior in a bar in the southern German city on Monday and she took him back to her apartment for sex, a police spokesman said in a statement.

Flights at Britain's second largest air hub, London's Gatwick Airport, were disrupted on Friday when a hot-air balloon strayed into its airspace, a spokeswoman said.

Five departing flights were affected after airspace was shut on safety grounds at the airport in Sussex, to the south of London, she said.

A diehard Colombian fan of Barack Obama has turned his home into his version of the White House and hopes to welcome the U.S. president with a gift when Obama attends a summit in nearby Cartagena this weekend.

Silvio Carrasquilla, an Afro-Colombian and a former mayor of the northern town of Turbaco, says he hopes to present the U.S. leader with a young donkey named "Demo." The donkey is the symbol of Obama's Democratic Party.

Wissam Mohammed Kazem took off in south Iraq in a homemade plane, but his love of aviation ultimately landed him in jail for making the aircraft without approval.

Another Iraqi ended up in trouble 30 years ago over a homemade helicopter, indicating that then, as now, it is not in one's interest to make and pilot flying machines at home here.

Japanese keepers looking for a penguin on the lam in Tokyo have stood down their month-long search but say they hope the bird's impending adulthood will give it away.

Staff at Tokyo Sea Life Park said Thursday they are no longer combing riverbanks every day looking for any sign of the creature, which fled captivity in early March.

French presidential candidates woo voters; a YouTube comedic duo has launched a parallel campaign of songs to poke fun at politics, posting a new video online each Sunday.

The high-energy, shaggy-haired duo sits cross-legged on the pavement in the videos, pounding at their instruments and bopping their bodies to as they sing songs that are equal parts humor and political critique.

Strangers donated the beautifully embroidered wedding dress, the two rings, the honeymoon time-share in Aruba. They acted quickly, too, because the bride was dying of cancer. Or so she said.

The state attorney general's office announced Tuesday that Jessica Vega, 25, has been indicted on charges of fraud and grand larceny for getting her "dream wedding" by falsely claiming she was dying of leukemia.

What about growing marijuana to pay off crushing municipal debt? One Spanish village put the idea to the vote Tuesday, and a majority of its citizens approved — but not the 75 percent needed.

The referendum in Rasquera, population 960, in the northeastern Catalonia region represented a quirky and legally touchy illustration of Spain's deep financial woes.

In a heist that could fill the mother of all bottomless cups, thieves in Austria have made off with 2 tons of coffee.

Police say the culprits broke into a wholesaler and coffee-roaster's warehouse east of Vienna, loaded a stolen van with the goods and then drove off.

Iraq is no stranger to battles, but this is not one fought with rifles and rockets: when the bell sounds, trainers release cocks Daqduqa and Sammam into the ring.

The crowd, scattered across the makeshift stands in a dank Baghdad house, erupts into cheers, baying for blood.