A group of Canadian technology workers won a CAN$7 million ($7.1 million) lottery this week on the same day they lost their jobs at an Ottawa manufacturing plant.

The 18 workers won the Lotto 6/49 prize on Wednesday, the same day their company, Smart Technologies, announced massive layoffs, starting in September, a company official told Agence France Presse.

An overcrowded prison in northeastern Brazil has added a new layer of security against escapes: two geese.

Sobral prison warden Wellington Picanco tells the G1 news website the geese make a lot of noise when they sense "strange movements."

Thousands of rangers and volunteers have climbed into treetop huts near reservoirs and watering holes in Sri Lanka to carry out the island nation's first full count of its dwindling wild elephant population.

The government says the three-day census through Saturday is aimed at devising a plan to protect the elephants. But several conservation groups have boycotted the count, accusing the government of using it as a "smoke screen" for capturing and domesticating the best young animals for use in temples, tourism and labor.

A famed Austrian museum has fired an employee for washing his hands and face with his urine.

Alfred Zoppelt says he was fired after 23 years of working as an attendant at the Belvedere, a castle in Vienna with a major art collection. He says his adherence to urine therapy was previously "never a problem."

First he pulled a knife — and when that didn't work a would-be robber persuaded his victim to hand over money with a sob story.

An Austrian police official said Thursday that a woman last month refused demands by a knife-wielding man to give him 400 euros ($570) from an ATM — but she then handed over 90 euros ($130) out of pity after he put away his weapon, took off his mask and told her that he was homeless and broke.

Costa Rica women have scheduled the country's first "Slut Walk" to protest a call by senior Catholic clerics for women to stop imitating men and to dress modestly, an organizer said Wednesday.

Montserrat Sagot, a university professor and feminist leader, said that protesters will rally on Sunday outside San Jose's Metropolitan Cathedral.

A French organic farmer has forked out 3,000 euros (2,100 dollars) for a series of billboard advertisements that denounce the evils of advertising.

Twenty-five of the giant ads went up this week across the southwestern town of Agen showing a human brain stuffed with advertising images and carrying the slogan "Advertising is manipulating you - React!"

A "sea crazy" Australian helicopter pilot was arrested on the tiny Pacific outpost of Nauru after illegally landing on the island in search of sweets and soft drinks, a report said Thursday.

The 24-year-old's helicopter was impounded and he was locked up after parking on a beach near Nauru's main supermarket while he bought some chocolates and soda, a spokesman for the island's government said.

Twenty inmates pound barrel-sized drums in a Taiwanese prison courtyard until they are so drenched with sweat that colorful tattoos show through their thin cotton T-shirts.

The convicts range in age from 18 to 25 and most of their records include violence or serious drug abuse. They beat out their energetic rhythms under a blazing summer sun during their midday session at the Changhua Prison.

Police say a woman endangered her 6-year-old niece by having the girl back the woman's car out of a tight parking spot, wrecking two other cars in the process.

Fifty-five-year-old Rebecca Beatty and her attorney have not returned calls on the charges she waived to Beaver County Court on Tuesday.