Their bronzed bodies rippling with tension, gaggles of Chinese bodybuilders preened and performed press-ups backstage before competing for one of the country's biggest prizes in their discipline.

More than 100 men competed at a Bodybuilding Grand Prix this weekend for a top prize worth 80,000 yuan ($13,000).

Workers clearing rubble in a flood-devastated town in the Indian Himalayas have discovered 19 million rupees ($303,000) in a safe which had been swept away by floodwaters, police said Monday.

The safe was found on Saturday near the ruins of a bank in the town of Kedarnath that was flattened by flash floods in June, a police officer said.

A Chinese hospital's request for blood from healthy female virgins for use in medical research has been condemned as insulting to women, state-run media reported Monday.

The Peking University Cancer Hospital said it needed the blood of 100 female virgins aged from 18 to 24 years old for studies on the human papilloma virus (HPV), which is usually transmitted through sexual contact, the China Daily reported.

A driver collecting video data for internet giant Google's Street View feature in Indonesia slammed into two vehicles after trying to flee responsibility for an earlier crash, police said Saturday.

The Indonesian man had been driving a Subaru hatchback in Bogor district on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta, on Wednesday with Google's logo and a camera poking from the roof, when he hit a public minivan.

A Canadian judged refused Friday to order the return of a woman's pet monkey, which won global fame when it was found wandering an Ikea parking lot in a stylish jacket.

Yasmin Nakhuda had gone to court to try to force a sanctuary to return the animal, which she described as being like a child to her.

A pizza place in an Illinois college town stirred up controversy after it offered free pizza to women who showed their breasts to employees. Critics of the offer lashed out online, causing the late-night eatery to shut down its Twitter and Facebook pages.

Drew's Pizza in Champaign, Ill., a popular place for college kids from nearby University of Illinois to fill their bellies after going to the neighborhood's many bars, came up with the not-so-brilliant idea to give away free pizzas to any woman who lifted up her shirt.

Police in Sri Lanka have discovered 100 kilos (220 pounds) of TNT on a truck impounded at a Colombo police station for the past 17 years, officials said Friday.

The vehicle had been seized in February 1996, during the country's civil war, less than two weeks after a truck bomb hit the Central Bank building in Colombo, killing 91 people and wounding 1,200 others.

Dog-loving Romanians living in a Bucharest district will be limited to "adopting" one stray dog per building, authorities said Thursday, amid a controversy over putting down strays.

"One cage may be placed behind the building for the adopted dog, so long as 51 percent of people living in the building are in agreement," the district town hall said in a statement.

An American adventurer's bid to float across the Atlantic to Europe in a rowboat suspended by a cluster of 370 helium balloons ended in failure after he was forced to land in the Canadian province of Newfoundland, it was confirmed Friday.

Balloon enthusiast Jonathan Trappe's attempt had earned comparisons with the plot of Oscar-winning animated movie "Up", about a pensioner who uses balloons to fly his home to South America.

The tongue-in-cheek Ig Nobel awards were handed Thursday to dozens of scientists, including those who confirmed drunk people think they are more attractive and studied the onion enzyme that makes us cry.

The Nobel prize spoof honors achievements "that first make people laugh and then make them think," according to a press release.