Peruvians crazy about their national dog, a bald and often toothless breed popular among Incan kings, have offered to send a hypoallergenic puppy to the Obama family.
US President-elect Barack Obama has promised daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, seven, a new pet for the White House. But Malia is allergic to most breeds, he said last Friday as speculation swirled about the dog the family would choose.
Owners of the Peruvian hairless dog, a breed dating back 3,000 years and depicted in pre-Hispanic ceramics, say it is perfect for children who are sensitive to dogs.
Woman falls into boiling water
A Russian woman who fell into a pit of boiling water after parking her car died yesterday from burns, a hospital official said.
The hole was caused by a ruptured underground heating pipe. "She parked her car, left it, and immediately found herself in boiling water," said an official at the Military Medical Academy in Russia's second city of St Petersburg.
200-year-old church vanishes into thin air
A church has vanished from the Russian village where it stood for almost 200 years, the local diocese said yesterday.
The Church of Christ's Resurrection, in the central Russian village of Komarovo, was built in 1809 but in early October someone took it away brick by brick, Fr Vitaly a spokesman for the local Russian Orthodox Church, said.
The church was in an isolated area only occasionally visited by clergymen, so the disappearance was not immediately noticed.
Police chief arrests 48 of his relatives
A police chief in a remote county of southwestern China has taken down for various crimes 48 of his relatives including brothers, cousins and a number of his wife's family, local media said yesterday.
Mr Laobulaluo, a police chief in Heizhugou township, Sichuan province, had seen 25 relatives either jailed, sent for "re-education through labour", or punished in other ways, according to a report posted on state news portal Chinanews.com.
Over a 10-year career, he had personally arrested a brother and two cousins after finding they had beaten local teachers at a primary school while drunk. Other family members were arrested after stealing a woman's handbag.
Park closed to stop summer deaths
Australia's harsh Simpson Desert conservation park will be closed during the southern hemisphere summer to prevent tourists dying in the outback, authorities said yesterday.
Temperatures in the Simpson Desert are forecast to reach 40 to 50 degrees Celsius and authorities said it would be too dangerous for people to try and cross the desert.
Nepal's mystery 'Buddha' boy
Thousands of people flocked to a remote jungle in southeast Nepal to see a boy, some believe is a reincarnation of Lord Buddha, who reappeared after he was missing for more than a year, police said yesterday.
Seventeen-year-old Ram Bahadur Bamjon made international headlines in 2005 when tens of thousands of people turned up to see him sitting cross-legged under a tree in a dense forest for nearly 10 months, reportedly without food and water.
Gang blows up police station
A group of men used dynamite to blow up a police station in a town in Brazil's Sao Paulo state yesterday, after seizing machine guns and a large cache of confiscated drugs from the building.
Globo TV network showed images of the wrecked building with its roof blown off and patrol cars nearby covered in rubble after the attack, which took place in Botucatu around 240 kilometres west of Sao Paulo city at about 5 a.m.
Witnesses said the men arrived at the station in a small truck and broke down the station's front door. They took pistols, machine guns, bullet-proof vests, 100 kilos of marijuana and 23 kilos of cocaine paste and cocaine and then set fire to all the files in the building, police said.