The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday fined The Netherlands for allowing unknown identity thieves to register 1,737 cars in a single man's name, setting him up for a slew of legal woes.

Anytime one of the cars was involved in an accident or traffic violation, the victim, Steven Benito Romet, faced fines and summonses, eventually landing in debtors' prison for lack of funds.

A French champagne producer literally hit gold when workers doing up an old building on his property brought down a shower of U.S. coins hidden in the rafters.

Francois Lange, the head of the Alexandre Bonnet champagne-producing firm, in this eastern French village on Tuesday described the treasure trove as one consisting of 497 gold coins -- with a face value of 20 dollars each -- minted between 1851 and 1928 and worth today about 750,000 euros (980,000 dollars).

Cut off by a relentless barrage of government shelling, activists in the besieged Syrian city of Homs have reverted to the age-old practice of using carrier pigeons to communicate with each other.

"From the activists in Old Homs (district) to those in Baba Amr, please tell us what you need in terms of supplies, medicine and food," reads one message attached to a pigeon's leg.

Police aren't filing charges against a father who briefly played a pornographic video instead of "The Smurfs" at his child's birthday party.

Tremonton Police Chief Dave Nance tells the Standard-Examiner of Ogden the man had rented a copy of "The Smurfs" from a kiosk and loaded the disc into his laptop. But when he turned the projector on for the children, pornographic images flashed on the screen.

It has been around for over 3,000 years, but Mexico's famous, usually hairless, "Xolo" dog is making a big splash as a "new breed" at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show here this week.

Tiny Chabella, descended from a breed the Aztecs considered sacred, is representing the Xoloitzcuintli (which means "hairless dog" or more broadly "dog of the god Xolotl") for the first time at the show.

King Momo, the Rio Carnival's symbol of overweight excess, has employed a personal trainer and a nutritionist as he goes to drastic lengths to whip himself into shape for the festivities.

Milton Junior, who weighs in at 160 kilograms (352 pounds) and stands 1.84 meters (six feet three inches) tall, knows what he is in for as this will be his fourth year playing the Brazilian city's carnival king.

A lioness has attacked and killed a South African zoo employee at a rural lion farm, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

"Apparently he was either feeding or cleaning an enclosure when he was attacked by a lioness," Johannesburg Zoo spokeswoman Letta Madlala told Agence France Presse.

Emirati love guru Widad Lootah is not your typical marriage counselor. She is an ultra-conservative Muslim who wears the full veil and talks a lot about sex, often quoting the Muslim holy book the Koran.

On the eve of Valentine's day, Lootah is calling on Muslim and Arab women everywhere to "embrace love and love making."

A Chinese zoo is to hold a Valentine's Day wedding for a male sheep and a female deer whose unconventional relationship captured the public imagination, the official Xinhua news agency said Monday.

Visitors have flooded to the wildlife park in the southwestern province of Yunnan to see the sheep, whose Chinese name Changmao means long hair, and the deer, Chunzi (pure), after zookeepers revealed online that the pair had begun mating.

Most pre-Carnival street parties in Brazil are all about samba, but the moves on display at Sunday's Blocao parade were focused more on wagging and strategic sniffing than on fancy footwork.

Hundreds of decked-out dogs — and a few brave cats — got in on the Carnival fun at Rio de Janeiro's annual pet-friendly parade: Labradors in pink tutus or engineers' overalls cavorted with Maltese terriers with fairy wings, and poodles in superheros' capes sniffed sausage dogs dressed up as Salome, with sequin-covered harem pants.