Paris authorities are mulling a plan to extend the Eiffel Tower downwards as above ground building would spoil the French capital's geometry, the head of the landmark's operating company said Friday.

"Paris Council will deliberate on Tuesday or Wednesday this project for an underground building, we need further studies and we're moving forward with the project," deputy mayor in charge of tourism Jean-Bernard Bros told Agence France Presse.

A Scottish local authority has lifted its ban stopping a nine-year-old Scottish girl from photographing her school lunches and posting them on her blog, after the move sparked outrage online.

Six weeks ago, Martha Payne, from Argyll in western Scotland, began taking photos of the uninspiring lunches provided by her school canteen and posting them on her blog, "NeverSeconds".

From political slogans scrawled on the walls to works of street art in run-down neighborhoods, Greece's economic crisis is inspiring graffiti that probe acute social themes ahead of Sunday's elections.

Ghoulish drawings of gas masks, portraits of suffering Greeks and invectives against the International Monetary Fund or Germany now plaster many walls in Athens alongside more fantastical images of monsters and gang-style tags.

An Argentine widow was spending days in the tomb of her husband who died two years ago, having set up a bed, Internet access and even a small cooker next to his coffin, officials told Agence France Presse Thursday.

"Police found Adriana Villareal had carried out some work in the tomb where her husband's coffin was. She had a radio, a computer, Internet, a chair and a small cooker," said local police commissioner Gustavo Braganza.

Maintenance and cleaning workers rushed to the Halba Serail in the northern province of Akkar on Friday to spray pesticides to get rid of an outbreak of fleas, rats and cats.

The “invasion” forced the employees of the Serail to quit the building, news reports said.

Grasshoppers who die frightened leave their mark in the Earth in a way that more mellow ones do not, U.S. and Israeli researchers said Thursday.

"So, indeed this sounds a little bit weird," lead author Dror Hawlena said in an audio interview posted on the journal Science's website.

A local Swedish politician wants to require all men to sit down whenever they use the toilets in a county council building, to keep them clean and promote good health, a counselor said Thursday.

Viggo Hansen, a member of the Left Party, submitted the proposal to the Soermland County Council in central Sweden earlier this week.

A looming foie gras ban in California is pitting animal rights protestors against high-end chefs. Squeezed in the middle is Guillermo Gonzalez, lamenting the end of his "American dream".

Gonzalez, the only foie gras producer in the famously liberal U.S. state, claims ignorant activists and "special interests" are unfairly throttling the livelihood he has built since arriving from El Salvador in 1986.

A Polish priest was sentenced to 30 hours of community service for disturbing the peace after villagers near his church complained the night-long chiming of the clock was losing them sleep.

"He was sentenced to 30 hours community service for disturbing the peace at night," Zbigniew Mierzejewski, a court official in Rawa Mazowiecka, central Poland, told Agence France Presse Wednesday, adding the verdict was subject to appeal.

A Polish football fan was so devastated when Russia scored against Poland at Tuesday's Euro 2012 match that he threw his television set out his third-storey window, police said Wednesday.

They took the man into custody, prompting him to miss the second half of the game, when Poland scored an equalizer, making the final score a 1-1 draw.