Six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi had to swallow his pride as well as frankfurters Friday when he failed to topple Joey Chestnut as the reigning hot dog-eating champ. Chestnut retained the title he won in last year's hot dog eating contest by gulping down five dogs in an eat-off. He beat out 20 other contestants in the Nathan's Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest held in the Coney Island section of this New York borough.

A couple visiting from Spain got the shcok of their lives after a shopping mall security guard banned them from the premesis and labeled them terrorists; simply for taking pictures with their family. According to Kim and Trevor Sparshott, a security guard at the Fareham Shopping Centre asked them to leave when they were spotted taking photographs of their grandchildren. The cameras were supposedly bannned "because of the risk of a terrorist attack. " the guard then "barred the couple from the center for life. " The Sparshotts, who now reside in Malaga, Spain, said they were only visiting their family in Gosport, Hants.

A veterinary doctor has extracted a 7-inch toy rubber lizard from a 12-inch bearded dragon named Mushu after its owner thought the dragon might be having a baby. When seven-year-old Finley Collins noticed an unusual protrusion near the lizard's tail she became worried of her pet and rushed her to the animal hospital.

A performance at the Edinburgh fringe festival, the Circus of Horrors, certainly lived up to its name when one of the unlucky performers had to be rushed to the hospital after his penis got stuck in a vacuum cleaner during his on-stage routine. Daniel Blackner, aka "Captain Dan the Demon Dwarf," had to be hospitalized after his one-man act went terribly awry, resulting in his penis getting stuck inside a Hoover vacuum, much to Blackner's - and the crowd's - horror.

Jiang Musheng from China's eastern Jiangxi Province was 26 years old when a man from his village recommended him to swallow live frogs as a remedy to his regular back and stomach pains. Initially hesitant, Musheng tried two of them and four decades later he is still eating them, though he has added some rodents to his menu. Now 66, Musheng believes that swallowing live frogs and mice has not only alleviated his pains, he reports feeling stronger and his health has improved according to a report in the Beijing News.