Odd News

LONDON (Reuters) - "Great Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs lost his long-running bid for early jail release on Wednesday after the British government said he should not be allowed out on parole because he was "wholly unrepentant."

GOMA, Congo (Reuters) - Independence day fireworks sent terrified Congolese sprinting for cover on Tuesday in fear that war had broken out again in their eastern city.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia closed down its casinos overnight as gambling was banned nationwide, a move the industry says could throw a third of a million people out of work.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police have arrested a man whom they suspect hired a contract killer to murder his boss in a desperate bid to avoid being laid off, newspaper El Pais reported on Tuesday.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - A Sri Lankan court threatened a mosquito repellent factory manager with six months in jail for failing to destroy mosquito breeding areas on company premises to stop the spread of dengue fever, an official said Tuesday.

KABUL (Reuters) - The British military is mystified after what was first announced as a major haul of opium poppy seeds amounted to nothing more than a hill of beans.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police said on Friday they had foiled an Italian drug trafficker's plan to break out of jail in the Canary Islands using climbing equipment and a four-metre-long zeppelin.

LONDON (Reuters) - A housewife from Sleaford in Lincolnshire will be the first of thousands of people to stand for one hour on top of a plinth in London's Trafalgar Square as part of a 100-day "live sculpture" exercise.

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Air New Zealand has hit on a novel way to make sure even the most jaded flyers keep their eyes glued on its flight safety briefing.

LONDON (Reuters) - After supervising around 3,000 re-strings during the Wimbledon fortnight one might think Roger Dalton could put his feet up with a bowl of strawberries on Sunday and watch the men's singles final in peace.

ELK GROVE, Calif. - A Northern California elementary school teacher sent her students home for the summer with a video of class memories, only the DVD included six seconds of her having sex on a couch.

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - Europe's highest court on Thursday upheld the right of Dutch and Italian brewers to sell their 'Bavaria' beer in Italy, rejecting a bid by a company making a rival beer with the equivalent name in German to stop them.

HARTFORD, Conn. - A 16-year-old girl thought she heard her mother being assaulted by her boyfriend and rounded up some friends who beat him up, only to learn later that the couple actually were having sex, the woman and police said. The girl misinterpreted the woman's amorous screams, and she and four other teens went to the woman's bedroom in the Torrington home on June 6, police Lt. Bruce Whiteley said Thursday.

GOMA, Congo (Reuters) - Independence day fireworks sent terrified Congolese sprinting for cover Tuesday in fear that war had broken out again in their eastern city.

PORTLAND, Ore. - An Oregon woman obsessed with bunnies has been ordered back behind bars after police found her in a hotel room with more than a dozen rabbits.

BEIJING (Reuters) - What do Johnny Depp, Garfield, Paris Hilton and roast pork have in common? In China, the answer is that a new government-mandated Internet filter rates some pictures of all four of them as bad for your moral health.

WINCHESTER, Va. - Workers at the Frederick County Landfill were surprised by what they found in a large trash bin trucked in from a Goodwill Industries store: a woman who had apparently gotten trapped. "They opened the door and she got out," said landfill manager Ron Kimble.

LONDON (Reuters) - Having sex every day improves the quality of men's sperm and is recommended for couples trying to conceive, according to new research.

VERNON, N.J. - A northwestern New Jersey man said he was mugged in his driveway by a sandwich-craving bear. Henry Rouwendal said he was packing his car last Friday when he was hit from behind and knocked to the ground. He said the culprit was a black bear who took his Italian sandwich.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - A Sri Lankan court threatened a mosquito repellent factory manager with six months in jail for failing to destroy mosquito breeding areas on company premises to stop the spread of dengue fever, an official said Tuesday.