LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spokesman on Friday defended the utility's practice of rinsing artificial turf at its facilities in face of a local TV report that portrayed the move as a waste of water during California's four-year drought.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) - Rats have been evicted from the Arkansas governor's mansion but the lingering effects of a rodent infestation, including noxious odors, require its study to be demolished and rebuilt, officials said this week.

(Reuters) - An estimated 5,000 people, dressed in all white, showed up at a Parisian-inspired picnic in lower Manhattan's Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park on Thursday evening wearing masks and Marie Antoinette wigs.

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Texas mattress store that shut its doors after being pilloried for a social media ad where staff used bedding to stage a mock collapse of New York City's Twin Towers to promote a Sept. 11 sale has decided to reopen.

LONDON (Reuters) - Bank of England Governor Mark Carney told British schoolchildren on Friday he was nicknamed 'Carnage' in his youth and wished he had been a professional ice hockey goalie.

MARGARITA ISLAND, Venezuela (Reuters) - Once known as the "Pearl of the Caribbean," the former Venezuelan tourist hot spot Margarita fell on hard times amid the country's economic crisis with trash on streets, scarcities of food and water, rampant crime and a dwindling number of foreign visitors.

LEATHERHEAD, England, Sept 16 (Reuters) - If there is one thing the British enjoy, it is a good cup of tea and one English drinks maker has come up with an unusual way of making the brew - sprayed into a cup from an aerosol can.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Virtual reality got a little too real at the Tokyo Game Show on Friday when gamers lined up at one exhibition and got touchy-feely with a mannequin that with VR goggles transformed into a female anime character.

(Reuters) - Two people were in jail in Georgia on Thursday for calling 911 with fake reports of clowns trying to lure children into a van, according to police and local media, as claims of such sightings spread to a third Southern state.