Australian pizza is now officially the best in the world.

Well, sort of.

Judges at last weekend's Campionato Mondiale Della Pizza (Pizza World Championship) held in Parma, Italy, awarded the world's top margherita pizza title to Australian chef Johnny Di Francesco, owner of the 400 Gradi restaurant in Brunswick, a Melbourne suburb.

Di Francesco, 36, beat more than 600 competitors from 35 countries to take home the Specialita Traditionale Garantita pizza prize in the annual competition.

The win and subsequent publicity has made the small restaurant he owns in his hometown an overnight sensation.

"It's been an amazing reaction," Di Francesco tells CNN. "Honestly, I just went to Naples to do what I love. I didn't think it was going to make such a stir."

Read the full story - World's best pizza not in Italy

Two competitive eating champions defended their title Thursday at New York's annual Independence Day hot dog eating competition.

Joey "Jaws" Chestnut of San Jose, California, snagged his seventh straight victory, and Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas of Alexandria, Virginia, defended her women's division title at the 98th annual hot dog chow down sponsored by Nathan's Famous.
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From Memorial Day to Labor Day, Americans gobble down 818 hot dogs every second, according to National Hot Dog & Sausage Council statistics. On Independence Day alone, the people of this great nation devour approximately 150 million hot dogs.

Joey “Jaws” Chestnut hopes to be responsible for at least 69 of them. That's how many HDB (hot dogs and buns, in competitive eating speak) it would take to best his previous record of 68 in 10 minutes, set at the 2009 Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest. The former construction manager turned full-time competitive eater tied that stat last year, locking in his sixth consecutive victory at the Coney Island contest.
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