A drug dealer in France can count himself unlucky after he threw his cannabis stash out of his flat, only for it to fall straight into the hands of police stationed outside.

Hearing the dreaded tread of security forces up his stairs, the man tried to get rid of the tell-tale evidence by hurling three bags of the drug off his balcony, without knowing other officers were posted outside.

A 75-year-old man helped in the arrest of a shoplifting suspect at a Pennsylvania mall by tackling him and threatening to break his arm if he tried to escape.

Charlie Burton, of Fombell, says he was a vendor at the Washington Crown Center mall for a gun show when he saw an officer struggling with the suspect, 29-year-old Jonathan Fekete Jr.

To most people, it may be just a fun food to munch while watching a movie.

But to a couple of French investigators, popcorn is a biomechanical enigma waiting to be explained.

Police caught up to a man trying to flee assault charges because he posted a selfie on Facebook while sitting on a Greyhound bus out of town, a police chief said Tuesday.

"We like it when dumb criminals assist us in our investigation," Ambridge police Chief James Mann told the Beaver County Times, which first reported the arrest.

Police say a Pennsylvania man hoping to pass a fraudulent check instead stole $500 when he found that much money left behind by another customer at a drive-thru bank window.

Twenty-eight-year-old Randy Gillen Jr. was in the Clearfield County Jail on Monday, awaiting a Feb. 11 preliminary hearing.

A water manager is facing discipline after he was caught urinating in an empty reservoir that supplies drinking water for the San Francisco Bay Area.

San Francisco Public Utilities Commission spokesman Tyrone Jue said Monday that the agency confirmed anonymous complaints that maintenance planner Martin Sanchez had urinated in the 674-million-gallon reservoir in the Sierra Nevada foothills early last month.

A British chain of DIY stores has told staff to prepare for customers looking for ropes, plastic cable ties and tape after seeing the erotic film  "Fifty Shades of Grey", British newspapers reported on Tuesday.

A leaked memo from B&Q stores entitled "Preparation for Fifty Shades of Grey Customer Queries" told its 20,000 plus workforce that copies of the sado-masochistic erotic novel would be delivered to the chain's 359 stores. 

Outsiders who walk into a U.N. climate conference often experience a "beam-me-up-Scotty" moment. 

Like Star Trek's Captain Kirk, they find themselves in a alien world where the people speak Climate, a language as unsettling as Klingon... and nearly as impenetrable.

A team of women dressed as fish and half-a-dozen Harry Potter lookalikes were among those whose efforts ended in glorious failure at Japan's national hole-digging championships, organizers said on Monday.

A group of burly diggers from Saitama, north of Tokyo, took home the first prize of 100,000 yen ($840) and a golden shovel after burrowing down a staggering 3.48 meters (11 ft 5 ins) in the allotted time of 30 minutes in Narita on Sunday.

A Japanese court has ruled the grieving owners of a Chihuahua be paid damages including funeral costs after their family pet died of a heart attack when charged by a German Shepherd, reports said Saturday.

The diminuitive 15-year-old canine was on a walk in the Japanese city of Sakai in February last year when the German Shepherd rushed at the animal, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper said.