Postal authorities in the Chinese capital Beijing have come up with a novel solution to a soaring divorce rate -- love letters sent with a seven-year delay.

The new service allows couples in the first flush of romance to post a letter their partner will only receive seven years later, the China Daily reported on Tuesday, saying that was when relationships often began to cool.

The U.S. space agency is offering schools and universities a special deal on astronaut cuisine and heat tiles from the now extinct space shuttles, just over 20 dollars a pack, NASA said Monday.

"The lightweight tiles protected the shuttles from extreme temperatures when the orbiters re-entered the Earth's atmosphere," NASA said in a statement.

Iran's state television has banned programs featuring provocative love stories or shirtless men in an apparent bow to hard-line Muslim clerics complaining about such scenes in foreign movies, Iranian newspapers reported Tuesday.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iranian TV and movie productions have avoided scenes showing the close mixing of the genders, which is discouraged in Iran. Iranian actresses in domestic productions also appear in Islamic dress that covers them from head to toe.

Japan says it has a record 47,756 people aged 100 or older — most of them women.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Tuesday that the total was up 3,307 from a year ago — and four times more than Japan had a dozen years ago.

Scientists tracking Happy Feet, the wayward penguin who became a worldwide celebrity after washing up on a New Zealand beach, said Monday they had lost contact with the giant bird.

Researchers said they had received no transmissions since last Friday from a satellite tracking device that was attached to the penguin after he was released into the icy Southern Ocean on September 4.

Britons may soon drink more beer at home than in the nation's cherished pubs, The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Monday, with one industry body blaming the supermarkets for undercutting them.

Drinkers are close to consuming more beer from supermarkets, it said, citing figures from the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) trade body.

A simple phone call about dead sea otters washing up on the shores of Alaska after U.S. nuclear tests lead to the birth of environmental organization Greenpeace four decades ago.

Irving Stowe and his wife, Dorothy, were so outraged by the news that they launched a petition from their home in Vancouver, on the Canadian west coast, and set up a group called "Don't Make A Wave."

Some had to stand on tiptoe to peer over the podium. Others pulled at the stiff collars of their unfamiliar suits. But the children of 9/11 victims stood proud as they shared heart wrenching ordeals.

Thieves in the small Swiss town of Weiningen near Zurich stole 84 carrier pigeons worth about 12,000 francs (13,500 dollars, 10,000 euros), local police reported Sunday.

The night between Saturday and Sunday, thieves entered a garden-house breeding station overnight "and stole 84 grey, black and brown carrier pigeons," the Zurich canton police said in a press release.

A captive orangutan often spotted smoking cigarettes given to her by zoo visitors is being forced to kick the habit, a Malaysian wildlife official said Monday.

Government authorities seized the adult ape named Shirley from a state-run zoo in Malaysia's southern Johor state last week after she and several other animals there were deemed to be living in poor conditions.