An amorous Italian who claimed to set a new world record for non-stop kissing had to receive oxygen after his 31-hour 18-minute St Valentine's marathon.
The couple, who staged the breathtaking smooch, were not the only ones to kiss their way into the record books.
In the Philippines 5,122 couples lined up to kiss for at least 10 seconds to celebrate the day of love. Thousands of onlookers cheered as the couples, stretched out along Manila Bay, locked lips on the stroke of midnight on Friday.
"Some wouldn't let go," Manila city spokesman Armand Sebastian said.
The kissathon beat the previous world record of 4,445 couples set last month in Santiago in Chile, he said.
Organizers of the Italian event in northern Vicenza said the loved-up couple had beaten the previous non-stop kissing record by 18 minutes and 33 seconds.
But when they detached on Friday night, doctors had to give the 31-year-old man oxygen. The 30-year-old woman was said to be in fairly good shape.
Italy, the land that gave the world St Valentine, saw more passion in the capital Rome when 1,700 couples, most of them gay, kissed each other in the historic Piazza Farnese.
The kiss-in was held during a demonstration to demand the same rights for gays as married heterosexual couples.
In San Francisco gay couples rushed to get married over the Valentine's Day weekend after a judge refused to stop the ceremonies in defiance of California state law.
Valentine's Day had an altogether different flavor in Texas, where one Dallas church celebrated by asking people to trade guns for roses. The First Presbyterian Church said anyone handing in a gun would get US$50, which it suggested could be spent on candy or flowers.
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