Japan machinery orders up 4.6% in July

By Barbara Liston ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - An 18-foot, 8-inch Burmese python set a record for the longest snake ever captured in South Florida, where the exotic species has taken up residence. College student Jason Leon snared the female python in a rural area southeast of Miami earlier this month, when he saw part of it sticking out from brush along the roadside, said Carli Segelson, a spokeswoman for the state's Fish and Wildlife Commission. ...

By Paul Casciato LONDON (Reuters) - Some spectators at London's Chelsea Flower Show wouldn't be caught dead with one in the trunk of their Bentley, but garden gnomes have turned up at the show's 100th edition this year, for charity. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), which runs Chelsea in the grounds of the Christopher Wren-built Royal Hospital Chelsea, has lifted a ban on the ceramic figures with floppy hats and beards in order to raise funds for an RHS charity that supports the use of

By Jonathan Kaminsky OLYMPIA, Washington (Reuters) - With Washington state about to embark on a first-of-its-kind legal market for recreational marijuana, the budding ranks of new cannabis growers face a quandary over what to do with the excess stems, roots and leaves from their plants. Susannah Gross, who owns a five-acre farm north of Seattle, is part of a group experimenting with a solution that seems to make the most of marijuana's appetite-enhancing properties - turning weed waste into pig