It's the classic excuse for not having done your homework - but one teenager missed out on a trip to Peru after his dog ate his passport.

Michael Jackson fans can keep redundant tickets for his UK dates if they waive their right to a refund, organisers say.

Look closely and you can see two pairs of eyes... this is the scene from a webcam that was supposed to dazzle potential tourists.

Reuters - A woman who inherited some Chinese carved jade from her father has scored the first $1 million (601,557 pounds) appraisal from experts on the U.S. television program "Antiques Roadshow," the producers said on Monday.

Birmingham police said a 22-year-old woman has suffered a broken leg after being hit by a train. Officer Lawrence Billups said the woman told police she was lying on the tracks "to clear her mind" when the train approached around 7 a.m. Sunday.

A shambling sentence about screaming seafarers on the sturdy whaler Ellie May stood shoulders above the rest in an annual bad writing contest. David McKenzie, 55, of Federal Way, Wash., won the grand prize in San Jose State University's annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with this:

A Wisconsin teenager using a classic excuse for evading schoolwork missed a class trip to Peru despite his tale being true: The dog ate his passport. Officials at Chicago's O'Hare airport told 17-year-old Jon Meier the chewed-on document was fine, but...

AP - A Wisconsin teenager using a classic excuse for evading schoolwork missed a class trip to Peru despite his tale being true: The dog ate his passport.

An iguana named Ivana has been having a tough time of it in Des Moines. First she was abandoned in an apartment building, and now she's been stolen from the group that rescued her. Robin Argo, one of the founders of Iowa Reptile Rescue, said volunteers...

A shambling sentence about screaming seafarers on the sturdy whaler Ellie May stood shoulders above the rest in an annual bad writing contest. David McKenzie, 55, of Federal Way, Wash., won the grand prize in San Jose State University's annual Bulwer-Lytton...

The invasive Harlequin ladybird is putting over 1,000 species in the UK in peril, according to scientists.

Throwing "swine flu parties" in an attempt to get immunity against the virus while it is a fairly mild form is not a good idea, doctors say.