More than 2,000 musicians strummed ukuleles in a Japanese port city Saturday to set a new world record for the largest ever ensemble of the Hawaiian guitar.

Their effort was recognized by Guinness World Records officials who listened to them play "Aloha Mahalo A Hui Ho", a song written by Hawaiian-born former sumo wrestler Konishiki, in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo.

A Pakistani Hindu's conversion to Islam live on television during a prime-time Ramadan chat show has sparked criticism on behalf of religious minorities in the overwhelmingly Muslim country.

In just five minutes, the 20-year-old introduced as Sunil officially changed his religion under a cleric's guidance.

Protesters targeted a Chick-fil-A food truck in Washington on Thursday after the fast-food chain's president came out candidly against same-sex marriage.

"Ho-ho, hey-hey, Chick-fil-A is anti-gay," chanted a young crowd of around 20 demonstrators, with no apparent impact on the steady flow of patrons picking up chicken sandwiches and nuggets under the hot midday sun.

It is a painful memory for the young Mexican -- four hours locked up in the jail cell at the age of 14. His crime? Playing football. "It was forbidden," Cirilo Ceferino recalls.

He is now aged 21, but the memories flood back as Ceferino surveys the ruins of two schools that members of the Virgin of the Rosary, a fringe religious cult, recently destroyed and set on fire.

Sniffer dogs found 10 Iraqi and Syrian migrants hidden in the false bottom of a camper van in the Italian port of Brindisi, on a ferry coming from Greece, border police said on Thursday.

Fire crews had to cut open the bottom of the van to extract the nine Iraqis and one Syrian, three of whom required medical assistance.

Some world leaders may be making full use of the micro blogging Twitter tool to promote their ideas, but other international figures are shunning the medium, a new survey revealed Thursday.

"Sixteen of the G20 leaders are actively using Twitter for public diplomacy," said Matthias Lufkens, Digital Practice Leader at Burson-Marsteller, the communications firm behind the study.

Your mother was right: Pop music has become louder and less original over the years.

At least, this is the conclusion of a computer analysis of nearly half-a-million songs recorded between 1955 and 2010 and reported in Nature Scientific Reports Thursday.

The director of the International Monetary Fund's Latin America operations has resigned to become the head of a Chile's Canal 13 television network, the IMF said Thursday.

Nicolas Eyzaguirre, who took up his latest IMF post in January 2009, will leave his job immediately but his resignation will only be effective from the end of August, the IMF said in a statement.

Police were called to restore order after a bank ATM in eastern England started dispensing twice the money its customers were asking for.

The Lloyds TSB cash machine in the town of Ipswich began dispensing "free money" to customers on Wednesday after the bank branch had closed for the evening.

A 21-pound (9.5-kilogram) lobster caught off Cape Cod has found a new home at the New England Aquarium in Boston.

That's after a raffle for the lobster at Capt'n Elmer's Fish Market in Orleans, where it was caught July 14.