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Bong bust leaves crims crackers

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:07:11 +1100

Customs officials in the US have uncovered 316,000 smoking bongs disguised as Christmas ornaments.

Cinema popcorn 'a nutritional horror'

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:31:45 +1100

Forget Freddy Krueger or flesh-eating zombies: the real villain of a night at the movies could be lurking in a bag of popcorn or drinks carton.

Santa's elves banned from writing to kids

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:06:47 +1100

Children who write to Santa, care of North Pole, Alaska may have to go without a reply - after one of his helpers was identified as a sex offender.

Fortune left at shrine 'for safe-keeping'

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:36:49 +1100

A US woman left her life-savings - $40,000 in rare coins - at a Catholic shrine so the Virgin Mary would watch over them while she was out of town.

Thief trades cash for conscience

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:15:02 +1100

Attack of conscience or calculated move? French police want to know why an armoured car driver who made off with 2.5 million euros gave himself up.

Granny jailed for life of crime

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:52:17 +1100

After a crime spree stretching back 53 years, a 70-year-old German woman is finally behind bars for pickpocketing a woman 10 years her senior at a bus stop.

'Unfriend' named word of the year

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:02:16 +1100

'Unfriend' - to delete someone as a friend on a social network such as Facebook - has been named the word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary.

Orchestra to give concert in brothel

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:57:02 +1100

A German orchestra has announced plans to play in a brothel, in an attempt to bring classical music "out of the concert hall and to where people are".

Indian couple divorce over 'soap opera'

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:30:15 +1100

An Indian woman has successfully divorced her husband after he refused to allow her to watch a television soap opera.

Aussie restaurants serve 'crap' food

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:56:20 +1100

A food critic being sued for defamation over a bad restaurant review says most restaurants in Australia serve "crap" food.

Italy collector finds Galileo's lost tooth, fingers

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:23:01 +1100

ROME (Reuters) - An art collector has found a tooth, thumb and finger of the renowned Italian scientist Galileo Galilei who died in the 17th century, Florence's History of Science museum announced on Friday.

New EU president wins fans in Japan - - as a poet

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:42:21 +1100

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Herman Van Rompuy, the European Union's new president, may not be very well known around the world but he's already winning fans in Japan -- as a poet rather than a politician.

New fossils reveal a world full of crocodiles

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:50:46 +1100

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New fossils unearthed in what is now the Sahara desert reveal a once-swampy world divided up among a half-dozen species of unusual and perhaps intelligent crocodiles, researchers reported on Thursday.

Girl, 10, tasered in shower row

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:26:57 +1100

A US policeman used a taser stun gun on a 10-year-old girl because her mother was angry that she would not take a shower before going to bed.

Obama gets five minutes with half - brother in China

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:38:03 +1100

BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama took time out of his busy diplomatic schedule in China to meet with his half-brother, who lives in the southern part of the country -- but only for five minutes.

Japan's marathon queen Takahashi to run veggie far

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:55:04 +1100

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's former Olympic marathon gold medallist Naoko Takahashi has decided to become a vegetable farmer.

Italian women disappointed by Gaddafi "party"

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:01:21 +1100

ROME (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in Rome for a U.N. food summit, spent several hours in the company of 200 Italian women recruited by an agency and tried to convert them to Islam, Italian media reported on Monday.

NZ team to drill for whisky in Antarctic

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:39:23 +1100

A team of New Zealanders will use special drills to free trapped crates full of supplies - including whisky - left behind by explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton in Antarctica.

Mock funeral mourns Venice's shrinking population

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:52:49 +1100

VENICE, Italy (Reuters) - A procession of gondolas accompanied a pink coffin along Venice's Grand Canal on Saturday in a mock funeral to protest against the steep decline in the city's population.

Chavez gives 'fat people' dietary advice

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:54:45 +1100

President Hugo Chavez advised his supporters in a televised speech to exercise and eat healthy to trim their waistlines.