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.

Flouting the age-old parental refrain, "Don't play with your food!" comes a zany Irish production called "Cirque de Legume" which is all about playing with food. Specifically, with root vegetables.

The chewing, spewing and other abuse of leafy produce has been raised to an art form by the hilarious, deliberately awkward duo performing "Cirque de Legume," which opened Sunday night off-Broadway at 59E59 Theaters as part of the yearlong 2011 Imagine Ireland festival. It's an animal-vegetable-maniac circus, laden with slapstick and humor at the expense of a basket of vegetables.

A French diplomat working for the European Union in Papua New Guinea was airlifted to Australia on Monday after a shark attacked him when he was kite-surfing near Port Moresby.

Thomas Viot, 30, was bitten on the right leg by what he believed was a two-meter tiger shark on a reef at Hula, south of the PNG capital on Sunday afternoon.

Pope Benedict XVI called on political leaders to resist the temptation to hate as he marked the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in Italy.

"In remembering to the Lord the victims of the attacks that took place on that day, and their families, I invite the leaders of nations and men of good will to always refuse violence as a solution to problems and to resist the temptation to hate," Benedict told crowds of faithful during a pastoral visit to the eastern port city of Ancona.