The mayor of one of the largest cities in Japan, where body art is associated with gangsters, has told municipal workers to forget about promotion unless they reveal whether or not they have a tattoo.

Toru Hashimoto, the hugely popular mayor of Osaka and a rising star on the national political stage, described the order to about 34,000 city workers earlier this month as "necessary for labor affairs management.”

A Silicon Valley software executive put fake bar codes on Lego sets at various Target stores, bought the toys at a steep discount, then sold them online for thousands of dollars, authorities said.

Thomas Langenbach, 47, appeared in court Tuesday on four felony counts of burglary that could net him up to five years in prison if convicted. He did not enter a plea.

A Channel Islands auction house says it's selling a vial that allegedly contains blood residue from Ronald Reagan — a move denounced Tuesday by the late U.S. president's family and his foundation.

The vial being auctioned online was used by the laboratory that tested Reagan's blood when he was treated at George Washington University hospital after a 1981 assassination attempt in Washington, the PFCAuctions house said.

Who's going to win the European Championship? Time to ask an elephant — or a pig.

Poland's answer to Paul the Octopus — the tentacled tipster who gained worldwide fame for his 2010 World Cup predictions — is Citta the elephant. Ukraine, however, will probably go for an enormous beer-loving pig — but there are big doubts about whether he can handle the media glare.

A Chinese immigrant who beheaded and cannibalized a Canadian bus passenger in front of horrified travelers four years ago spoke out for the first time Tuesday, saying he believed his victim was an alien.

Vince Weiguang Li, 43, after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was found not guilty of murdering 22-year-old Tim McLean on a Canadian Greyhound bus on July 30, 2008.

France's new first lady, Valerie Trierweiler, Monday said she had been given some precious tips on her new role by Michelle Obama, as she eyed a future as an ambassador for equality.

"What interests me, is the beginning, the children, equal opportunity," she told reporters after a visit to a French school in Chicago, where NATO leaders held a summit.

New French President Francois Hollande was late for a very important date Monday, when he missed the start of a NATO summit and had to sneak into the talks 15 minutes after they started.

Hollande, making his diplomatic debut less than a week after being inaugurated as France's new leader, was delayed by a series of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of NATO summit in Chicago.

The fire burns and the smoke rises in this violence-torn Nigerian city, but the sweet smell that follows makes clear there is no reason to be afraid -- unless you are vegetarian.

"The people here have high culinary taste," 32-year-old Isa Jaja explained while trimming fat off a slab of beef at his food hut along a road where security forces in trucks regularly prowl, rifles at the ready.

Airline flight attendants are fuming over nightclubs in the South Korean capital that feature sexy waitresses dressed in skimpy copies of cabin crew uniforms, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Outside a subway station in southern Seoul, young women attired like flight attendants handed out leaflets advertising one such "concept" bar, the JoongAng Ilbo daily said on its website.

A car with five off-duty policemen on board crashed into the Malaysian prime minister's official residence, reports and an official said Sunday.

The five sustained mostly minor injuries in the pre-dawn crash Saturday at Prime Minister Najib Razak's residence in the sprawling administrative capital of Putrajaya, the New Straits Times daily and Bernama news agency reported.